UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


BOOK 

l\S 


LIBRARY 


CLASS  ' 


VOLUME 


ORATIONS  AND  ADDRESSES 

OP 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS 


EDITED  BY 

CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON 


VOLUME  I. 

ON  THE  PRINCIPLES  AND  CHARACTER  OF  AMERICAN 
INSTITUTIONS,  AND  THE  DUTIES  OF 
AMERICAN  CITIZENS,  1856-1891 


NEW  YORK 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

1894 


Copyright,  1893,  by  Harper  &  Brothers. 
All  rights  reserved. 


Op  £ 


EDITORIAL  NOTE 


Q»\S 

C, 


These  volumes  comprise  a  selection  of  Mr.  Curtis's 
chief  orations  and  other  discourses,  from  1856,  when  he 
was  thirty-two  years  old,  to  1892,  the  year  of  his  death. 

He  had  often  been  urged  to  prepare  such  a  selection 
for  the  press.  But  his  modest  estimate  of  the  worth  of 
his  work,  as  well  as  his  constant  laborious  occupations, 
prevented  him  from  doing  so.  In  1887  he  wrote  to  a 
friend  who  desired  him  to  publish  them  :  —  “  My  ad¬ 
dresses  are  really  ephemeral.  In  such  matters  I  have, 
what  is  not  very  unusual,  a  disposition  to  trust  my  own 
instinct.  But  I  shall  hold  the  project  in  view,  and 
please  myself  with  thinking  of  the  millennial  day  of 
leisure  when  I  can  consider  and  arrange  them.” 

In  speaking  of  his  addresses  as  ephemeral,  Mr.  Curtis 
may  have  had  in  mind  that  many  of  them  dealt  with 
questions  of  the  day  which  were  no  longer  of  immediate 
concern.  But  a  transient  question  may  be  so  treated 
with  reference  to  general  principles,  and  it  was  Mr.  Cur¬ 
tis’s  habit  so  to  treat  them,  that  the  discourse  may 
possess  lasting  worth ;  and  his  speeches  have,  besides, 
permanent  interest  as  a  contemporary  judgment  of  events 
and  conditions  by  a  high-minded  man,  whose  influence 


IV 


EDITORIAL  NOTE 


was  felt  in  the  shaping  of  public  opinion  and  in  the 
determining  of  public  action. 

The  range  of  the  subjects  dealt  with  in  these  addresses 
is  wide,  but  the  spirit  which  pervades  them  gives  unity 
to  the  collection.  It  is  the  spirit  of  a  lover  of  his  coun¬ 
try,  firmly  convinced  of  the  validity  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  American  democracy  in  its  highest  sense, 
and  believing,  consequently,  in  the  indissoluble  connec¬ 
tion  of  morals  and  politics ;  it  is  the  spirit  of  an  idealist, 
tempered  by  sound  reasonableness,  and  by  experience  in 
affairs ;  the  spirit  of  an  independent,  well  aware  of  the 
limits,  established  by  the  necessity  of  party  organiza¬ 
tion,  within  which  independence  can  be  usefully  as¬ 
serted  and  maintained.  Of  this  spirit  of  patriotism,  of 
fidelity  to  moral  principles,  and  of  manly  independence, 
the  life  and  character  of  Mr.  Curtis  afforded  such  illus¬ 
tration  as  confirmed  and  enforced  the  lesson  of  his  words. 

I  have  included  in  the  collection  a  few  of  the  after- 
dinner  speeches  in  which  Mr.  Curtis  was  without  a  rival, 
not  merely  because  of  their  felicity  in  the  expression  of 
sentiment  appropriate  to  the  occasions  on  which  they 
were  delivered,  but  because  they  had  in  more  than  one 
instance  an  effect  upon  public  opinion.  And  I  have 
retained  the  notes  of  the  applause  with  which  they  were 
received  by  the  audience  to  which  they  were  addressed, 
as  a  characteristic  indication  of  the  immediate  impres¬ 
sion  they  produced. 


Shady  Hill,  Cambridge,  Mass., 
April ,  1893. 


Charles  Eliot  Norton. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  I 


v/  >T.  The  Duty  of  the  American  Scholar  to  Pol¬ 
itics  and  the  Times:  An  Oration  delivered  be¬ 
fore  the  Literary  Societies  of  Wesleyan  Univer¬ 
sity,  Middletown,  Conn.,  August  5,  1856  .  .  .  .  . 

II.  Patriotism  :  An  Oration  delivered  before  the  Grad¬ 
uating  Class  at  Union  College,  Schenectady,  N.  Y., 
July  20,  1857 . 

III.  The  Present  Aspect  of  the  Slavery  Question: 

A  Lecture  delivered  at  Plymouth  Church,  Brook¬ 
lyn,  N.  Y.,  October  18,  1859 . . 

IV.  The  American  Doctrine  of  Liberty:  An  Ora¬ 

tion  delivered  before  the  <t>.  B.  K.  Society  of  Harvard 
University,  July  17,  1862 . 

V.  Political  Infidelity:  A  Lecture,  March,  1864  .  . 

VI.  The  Good  Fight:  A  Lecture,  1865-6 . 

VII.  The  Right  of  Suffrage:  A  Speech  made  in  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  July  19,  1867 . 

VIII.  Fair  Play  for  Women:  An  Address  before  the 
American  Woman- Suffrage  Association,  at  Stein¬ 
way  Hall,  New  York,  May  12,  1870  ...... 


PAGE 


37 

61 

95 

123 

149 

179 

215 


VI 


/ 


CONTENTS 


IX.  The  Puritan  Principle — Liberty  under  the 
Law  :  A  Speech  made  at  the  Dinner  of  the  New 
England  Society  of  the  City  of  New  York,  Decem¬ 
ber  22,  1876 . 


X.  Puritan  Principle  and  Puritan  Pluck  :  A 
Speech  made  at  the  Dinner  of  the  New  England 
Society  of  the  City  of  New  York,  December  22, 
1883 . 

, 

XI.  The  Public  Duty  of  Educated  Men:  An  Ora¬ 
tion  delivered  at  the  Commencement  of  Union 
College,  Schenectady,  N.  Y.,  June  27,  1877  .  .  . 

XII.  New  York  and  its  Press:  An  Address  made  at 
the  Annual  Convention  of  the  New  York  State 
Press  Association,  at  Utica,  N.  Y.,  June  8,  1881  . 

XIII.  The  Leadership  of  Educated  Men  :  An  Ad¬ 

dress  delivered  before  the  Alumni  of  Brown  Uni¬ 
versity,  at  Providence,  R.  I.,  June  20,  1882  .  .  . 

XIV.  The  Spirit  and  Influence  of  the  Higher  Ed¬ 

ucation  :  An  Address  in  commemoration  of  the 
Centennial  Anniversary  of  the  Establishment  of 
the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  the 
Organization  of  the  Board  of  Regents,  delivered 
at  Albany,  N.  Y.,  July  8,  1884 . 

XV.  The  Puritan  Spirit:  An  Oration  delivered  at 
the  Unveiling  of  the  Pilgrim  Statue  by  the  New 
England  Society  of  the  City  of  New  York,  at  Cen¬ 
tral  Park,  June  6,  1885 . 

XVI.  The  English-speaking  Race:  A  Speech  deliv¬ 
ered  at  the  Annual  Dinner  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  the  State  of  New  York,  November 
15 >1887  . 


PAGE 


239 


251 


26l 


287 


313 


337 


367 


39i 


CONTENTS  V11 

PAGE 

XVII.  The  Higher  Education  of  Women  :  An  Ad¬ 
dress  delivered  at  the  Celebration  of  the  Comple¬ 
tion  of  the  Twenty-fifth  Academic  Year  of  Vassar 
College,  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y.,  June  12,  1890  .  .  .  399 

XVIII.  The  University  of  the  State  of  New  York  : 

An  Address  delivered  at  the  University  Convoca¬ 


tion  in  Albany,  July  9,  1890 . 427 

XIX.  Education  and  Local  Patriotism  :  An  Address 
delivered  at  the  Kingston  Academy,  Kingston, 

N.  Y.,  June  25,  1891 . 457 


INDEX 


483 


* 


I 

THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  TO 
POLITICS  AND  THE  TIMES 

AN  ORATION  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  LITERARY  SOCIETIES 
OF  WESLEYAN  UNIVERSITY,  MIDDLETOWN,  CONN., 

ON  TUESDAY,  AUGUST  5,  1 856 


The  following  oration  was  delivered  in  the  heat  of  the  Presi¬ 
dential  campaign  of  1856,  in  which  for  the  first  time  the  great 
political  parties  of  the  nation  were  distinctly  divided  and  arrayed 
against  each  other  on  the  question  of  slavery.  In  June,  Mr. 
Buchanan  had  been  nominated  as  the  candidate  of  the  Demo¬ 
cratic,  proslavery,  party.  In  the  same  month  the  lately-formed 
Republican,  antislavery,  party  held  its  first  nominating  conven¬ 
tion,  and  selected  General  Fremont  as  its  candidate. 

Never  had  the  aggressions  of  the  supporters  of  slavery  been 
more  constant  and  violent.  Kansas  had  been  invaded  by  slave¬ 
owners,  resolved  to  make  it  by  force  a  slave  State.  On  the  22d 
of  May,  because  of  expressions  in  his  vigorous  arraignment  of  the 
slave-power  in  his  speech  on  “The  Crime  in  Kansas,”  Mr.  Sum¬ 
ner  had  been  brutally  assaulted  and  disabled  in  his  seat  in  the 
United  States  Senate,  by  a  slave-holding  member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  from  South  Carolina.  On  the  previous  day,  the 
2 1  st  of  May,  the  town  of  Lawrence  in  Kansas  was  taken  posses¬ 
sion  of  by  forces  in  the  slave  interest,  and  two  free-State  print¬ 
ing-offices,  the  Free-State  Hotel,  and  the  house  of  the  governor 
of  the  territory  were  burned.  All  through  the  summer  the  so- 
called  “  Kansas  War  ”  continued,  with  desultorv  violence.  The 
antislavery  spirit  in  many  of  the  Northern  States  was  sluggish. 
The  conservative  temper  of  the  North  was  averse  to  active  re¬ 
sistance. 

This  speech  of  Mr.  Curtis’s  brought  him  at  once  into  promi¬ 
nence  as  a  leader  of  public  opinion.  It  was  widely  circulated.* 
It  helped  to  define  the  political  ideals,  and  to  confirm  the  polit¬ 
ical  principles  of  the  educated  youth  of  the  land.  Mr.  Curtis 
took  an  active  part  in  the  campaign,  and  was  one  of  the  most 
popular  and  effective  speakers  at  public  meetings.  From  this 
time  forward  his  influence  was  powerful  in  the  elevation  and 
purification  of  the  political  life  of  the  country. — C.  E.  N. 

*  It  was  published  in  the  New  York  Weekly  Tribune  of  Aug.  16,  which 
had  a  circulation  of  173,000  copies.  It  was  issued  as  a  pamphlet,  with 
a  dedication  to  the  venerable  Josiah  Quincy. 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  ^ 


-  3 

Gentlemen:  —  The  summer  is  our  literary  festival. 
We  are  not  a  scholarly  people,  but  we  devote  to  the 
honor  of  literature  some  of  our  loveliest  days.  When 
the  leaves  are  greenest  and  the  mower’s  scythe  sings 
through  the  grass,  when  plenty  is  on  the  earth  and 
splendor  in  the  heavens,  we  gather  from  a  thousand 
pursuits  to  celebrate  the  jubilee  of  the  scholar. 

No  man  who  loves  literature,  or  who  can,  in  any  way, 
claim  the  scholar  s  privilege,  but  is  glad  to  associate  the 
beauty  of  the  season  with  the  object  of  the  occasion, 
and  grace  with  flowers  and  sunshine  and  universal 
summer  the  homage  which  is  thus  paid  to  the  eternal 
interests  of  the  human  mind. 

We  are  glad  of  it,  as  scholars,  because  the  season  is 
the  symbol  of  the  character  and  influence  of  scholarly 
pursuits.  Like  sunshine,  a  spirit  of  generous  thought 
illuminates  the  world.  Like  trees  of  golden  fruit  in 
the  landscape  are  the  philosophers  and  poets  in  his¬ 
tory.  Happy  the  day  !  Happy  the  place  !  The  roses 
and  the  stars  wreathe  our  festival  with  an  immortal 
garland. 

Too  young  to  be  your  guide  and  philosopher,  I  am 


4 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


yet  old  enough  to  be  your  friend.  Too  little  in  ad¬ 
vance  of  you  in  the  great  battle  of  life  to  teach  you 
from  experience,  I  am  yet  old  enough  to  share  with 
you  the  profit  of  the  experience  of  other  men  and  of 
history.  I  do  not  come  to-day  a  mounted  general.  I 
hurry,  at  your  call,  to  place  myself  beside  you,  shoulder 
to  shoulder,  a  private  in  the  ranks.  We  are  all  young 
men  ;  we  are  all  young  Americans ;  we  are  all  young 
American  scholars.  Our  interests  and  duties  are  the 
same.  I  speak  to  you  as  to  comrades.  Let  us  rest  a 
moment,  that  we  may  the  better  fight.  Here,  in  this 
beautiful  valley,  under  these  spreading  trees,  we  bi¬ 
vouac  for  a  summer  hour.  Our  knapsacks  are  unslung 
and  our  arms  are  stacked.  We  give  this  tranquil  hour 
to  the  consideration  of  our  position  and  duties. 

The  occasion  prescribes  my  theme  ;  the  times  deter¬ 
mine  its  treatment. 

\ 

That  theme  is  the  scholar ;  the  lesson  of  the  day  is 

/ 

the  duty  of  the  American  scholar  to  politics. 

I  would  gladly  speak  to  you  of  the  charms  of  pure 
scholarship ;  of  the  dignity  and  worth  of  the  scholar ; 
of  the  abstract  relation  of  the  scholar  to  the  State. 
The  sweet  air  we  breathe  and  the  repose  of  midsum¬ 
mer  invite  a  calm  ethical  or  intellectual  discourse. 
But  would  you  have  counted  him  a  friend  of  Greece 
who  quietly  discussed  the  abstract  nature  of  patriotism 
on  that  Greek  summer  day  through  whose  hopeless  and 
immortal  hours  Leonidas  and  his  three  hundred  stood 
at  Thermopylae  for  liberty  ?  And  to-day,  as  the  scholar 
meditates  that  deed,  the  air  that  steals  in  at  his  window 
darkens  his  study  and  suffocates  him  as  he  reads.  Drift- 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


5 


ing  across  a  continent,  and  blighting  the  harvests  that 
gild  it  with  plenty  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Mississippi, 
a  black  cloud  obscures  the  page  that  records  an  old 
crime,  and  compels  him  to  know  that  freedom  always 
has  its  Thermopylae,  and  that  his  Thermopylae  is  called 
Kansas. 

Because  we  are  scholars  of  to-day  shall  we  shrink 

%  from  touching  the  interests  of  to-day?  Because  we  are 
scholars  shall  we  cease  to  be  citizens  ?  Because  we  are 

scholars  shall  we  cease  to  be  men  ? 

* — ' — 

Gentlemen,  I  am  glad  that,  speaking  of  the  duty  of 
the  American  scholar  to  the  times,  I  can  point  to  one 
who  fully  understands  that  duty  and  has  illustrated  it, 
as  Milton  did.  Among  fellow-countrymen,  that  scholar 
falls  defending  the  name  and  rights  of  his  countrymen ; 
and  one  of  those  countrymen  stares  at  him  as  he  lies 
insensible,  and  will  not  raise  him  lest  his  motives  be 
misunderstood  ;  and  another  turns  his  back  upon  his 
bleeding  colleague,  because  for  two  years  he  has  not 
been  upon  speaking  terms  with  him.  Gentlemen,  the 
human  heart  is  just,  and  no  traitor  to  humanity  es¬ 
capes  his  proper  doom.  The  sacred  story  hands  down 
to  endless  infamy  the  Priest  and  the  Levite  who  passed 
by  on  the  other  side.  Among  gentlemen,  this  scholar 
pleads  the  cause  dear  to  every  gentleman  in  history, 
and  a  bully  strikes  him  down.  In  a  republic  of  free 
men,  this  scholar  speaks  for  freedom,  and  his  blood 
stains  the  Senate  floor.  There  it  will  blush  through 
all  our  history.  That  damned  spot  will  never  out  from 
memory,  from  tradition,  or  from  noble  hearts.  Every 
scholar  degrades  his  order  and  courts  the  pity  of  all 


6 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


generous  men  who  can  see  a  just  liberty  threatened 
without  deserting  every  other  cause  to  defend  liberty. 
Of  what  use  are  your  books?  Of  what  use  is  your 
scholarship  ?  '  Without  freedom  of  thought  there  is  no 
civilization  or  human  progress,  and  without  freedom 
of  speech  liberty  of  thought  is  a  mockery. 

I  know  well  that  a  conventional  prejudice  conse¬ 
crates  this  occasion  to  dull  abstractions  and  timid,  if 
not  treacherous,  generalities.  It  would  allow  me  to 
speak  of  the  scholar,  and  of  the  American  scholar,  in 
his  relation  to  Greek  roots  and  particles,  but  would  for¬ 
bid  me  to  mention  his  duties  to  American  topics  and 
times.  I  might  speak  of  him  as  a  professor,  a  dialec¬ 
tician,  a  dictionary,  a  grammar,  but  I  must  not  speak 
of  him  as  a  man.  I  know  that  a  literary  orator  is  held 
to  be  bound  by  the  same  decencies  that  regulate  the 
preacher.  But  what  are  those  decencies  ?  Is  the 
preacher  to  rebuke  the  sins  of  Jerusalem,  or  of  Phila¬ 
delphia  ?  Is  he  to  say  in  general,  “  Be  good,”  when  he 
sees  in  what  particulars  we  are  bad,  and  counsel  silence 
and  peace,  when  silence  and  peace  are  treason  to  God 
and  man  ?  Are  the  liars  to  cry  to  the  preacher,  “  It  is 
not  your  business  to  denounce  lying ;  we  pay  you  to 
preach  against  sin”?  But  the  preachers’  Master  cried, 
“Woe  unto  you  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites,  for 
ye  devour  widows’  houses.”  He  specified  sins  and 
classified  sinners.  In  our  day  the  hot  adjuration  to  a 
clergyman  not  to  soil  his  pulpit  with  politics  is  merely 
the  way  in  which  the  nineteenth  century  offers  him  the 
thirty  pieces  of  silver. 

What  are  politics  but  the  divine  law  applied  to 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  7 

human  government?  Politics  are  the  science  of  the 
relation  of  men  in  human  society  ;  and  as  the  Founder 
of  Christianity  taught  peace  and  good-will  to  men,  how 
can  the  Christian  preacher  better  fulfil  his  office  than 
by  showing  how  peace  and  good-will  may  be  intro¬ 
duced  among  men,  and  by  exposing,  in  all  the  terror 
of  truth,  those  whose  policy  fosters  war  and  hatred 
among  men  ?  Why  does  the  pulpit  command  so  little 
comparative  respect,  but  because  it  does  not  apply 
truth  to  life  ?  When  the  American  people  has  great 
sins  to  account  for,  the  smooth  preacher  touches  with 
the  dull  edge  of  his  reproof  the  sins  of  the  Jewish 
people.  Therefore,  with  us  the  lecture -room  is  more 
thronged  than  the  church,  because  the  lecturer  ad¬ 
dresses  the  moral  sense  of  the  people  upon  their  moral 
interests,  and  the  most  popular  lecturers  are  the  preach¬ 
ers  who  are  most  faithful  in  their  pulpits  to  God  and 
man — for  their  cause  is  one. 

What  is  true  of  the  preacher  is  true  of  the  orator. 
I  should  insult  your  manhood,  I  should  forget  my  own, 
if,  in  addressing  you  to-day,  and  here,  I  did  not  say 
what  I  conceive  to  be  the  duty  of  the  scholar  to-day, 
and  here. 

First, — of  the  scholar.  The  popular  idea  of  the  schol¬ 
ar  makes  him  a  pale  student  of  books,  a  recluse,  a  vale¬ 
tudinarian,  an  unpractical  and  impracticable  man.  He 
is  a  being  with  an  endless  capacity  of  literary  and 
scientific  acquisition.  He  is  only  a  consumer,  not  a 
producer ;  or,  if  so,  only  a  producer  of  useless  results. 
Learning  is  supposed  to  be  put  into  him,  not  as  seed 
into  the  ground,  whence  to  spring  again,  covering  the 


8 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


earth  with  beauty  and  feeding  the  race,  but  rather  as 
vegetables  are  thrown  into  a  cellar,  where  they  lie  buried, 
not  planted,  producing  only  some  poor  shoot,  pallid  and 

useless. 

In  the  old  plays  and  romances  we  have  the  same 
picture  of  an  absent-minded  pedant,  the  easy  prey  of 
every  knave,  the  docile  husband  of  a  termagant ;  who, 
though  he  could  read  a  tragedy  of  ^Eschylus,  could  not 
tie  his  own  shoes.  He  belonged  to  the  great  establish¬ 
ments  as  an  encyclopaedia,  in  the  same  way  that  the 
fool  belonged  to  them  as  a  jest-book.  Scholars  were 
popularly  ranked  with  women,  having  all  their  weakness 
and  none  of  their  charms. 

r  But  in  any  just  classification  of  human  powers  and  pur- 

/  suits  the  scholar  is  the  representative  of  thought.  De¬ 
voted  to  the  contemplation  of  truth,  he  is,  in  the  State, 
a  public  conscience  by  which  public  measures  may  be 
tested  ;  the  scholarly  class,  therefore,  to  which  now,  as 
of  old,  the  clergy  belong,  is  the  upper  house  in  the  pol¬ 
itics  of  the  world. 

Now,  there  is  a  constant  tendency  in  material  pros¬ 
perity,  when  it  is  the  prosperity  of  a  class  and  not  of 
the  mass,  to  relax  the  severity  of  principle.  There¬ 
fore,  we  find  that  the  era  of  noble  thought  in  national 
history  is  not  usually  coincident  with  the  greatest 
national  prosperity.  Greece  was  not  greatest  when 
rumors  of  war  had  ceased.  Rome  was  not  most  im¬ 
perial  in  the  voluptuous  calm  of  Constantinopolitan  de¬ 
cay.  The  magnificent  monotony  of  Bourbon  tyranny 
in  France,  and  the  reign  of  its  shop-keeping  king,  were 
not  the  grand  eras  of  French  history.  Holland  began 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


9 


as  generously  as  America,  and  Holland  has  sunk  into 
the  imbecile  apathy  of  commercial  prosperity,  without 
art,  without  literature,  without  a  noble  influence  in  the 
world,  and  with  no  promise  of  the  future. 

When  Napoleon  reviled  England  as  a  nation  of  shop¬ 
keepers,  it  was  not  an  idle  phrase.  Napoleon  knew 
that,  both  historically  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  it 
was  the  tendency  of  a  long  peace  to  foster  trade,  and 
that  it  is  the  inevitable  tendency  of  trade,  which  is 
based  upon  self-interest,  to  destroy  moral  courage. 
When  he  said  a  nation  of  shop-keepers,  he  meant  a 
nation  whose  ruling  principle  was  private  gain  rather 
than  public  good ;  and  the  sagacious  ruler  knew  that 
corruption  and  cowardice  are  twins. 

The  tendency  of  selfish  trade  is  demoralizing,  because 
its  eagerness  for  peace  constantly  lowers  the  moral 
ideal.  The  private  pocket  inevitably  becomes  the  ar¬ 
biter  of  public  policy.  Plausibility  supplants  honesty, 
sophistication  takes  the  place  of  simplicity,  and  the 
certain  evils  of  the  existing  condition  are  resolutely 
preferred  to  the  splendid  possibilities  of  progress. 

Thus  it  arises  that  the  very  material  success  for 
which  nations,  like  individuals,  strive,  is  full  of  the 
gravest  danger  to  the  best  life  of  the  State,  as  of  the 
individual.  But  as  in  human  nature  itself  are  found 
the  qualities  which  best  resist  the  proclivity  of  an  indi¬ 
vidual  to  meanness  and  moral  cowardice — as  each  man 
has  a  conscience,  a  moral  mentor  which  assures  him 
what  is  truly  best  for  him  to  do — so  has  every  State  a 
class  which,  by  its  very  character,  is  dedicated  to  eter¬ 
nal  and  not  to  temporary  interests ;  whose  members 


IO 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


are  priests  of  the  mind,  not  of  the  body,  and  who  are 
necessarily  the  conservative  party  of  intellectual  and 
moral  freedom. 

This  is  the  class  of  scholars.  This  elevation  and  correc¬ 
tion  of  public  sentiment  is  the  scholar’s  office  in  the  State. 

To  the  right  discharge  of  this  duty  all  his  learning 
is  merely  subsidiary  ;  and  if  he  fail  to  devote  it  to  this 
end,  he  is  recreant  to  his  duty.  The  end  of  all  scholarly 
\  attainment  is  to  live  nobly.  If  a  man  read  books  mere¬ 
ly  to  know  books,  he  is  a  tree  planted  only  to  blossom. 
If  he  read  books  to  apply  their  wisdom  to  life,  then  he 
is  a  tree  planted  to  bear  glorious  fruit.  He  does  not 
think  for  himself  alone,  nor  hoard  a  thought  as  a  miser 
a  diamond.  He  spends  for  the  world.  Scholarship  is 
not  only  the  knowledge  that  makes  books,  but  the 
wisdom  which  inspires  that  knowledge.  The  scholar  is 
not  necessarily  a  learned  man,  but  he  is  a  wise  man. 
If  he  be  personally  a  recluse,  his  voice  and  influence 
are  never  secluded.  If  the  man  be  a  hermit,  his  mind 
is  a  citizen  of  the  world. 

If,  then,  such  be  the  scholar  and  the  scholar’s  office, 
if  he  be  truly  the  conscience  of  the  State,  the  funda- 
mental  law  of  his  life  is  liberty.  At  every  cost,  the  true 
scholar  asserts  and  defends  liberty  of  thought  and 
liberty  of  speech.  Of  what  use  to  a  man  is  a  thought 
that  will  help  the  world,  if  he  cannot  tell  it  to  the 
world?  The  Inquisition  condemns  Galileo’s  creed. 
E  pur  si  muove — still  it  moves — replies  Galileo  in  his 
dungeon.  Tyranny  poisons  the  cup  of  Socrates;  he 
smilingly  drains  it  to  the  health  of  the  world.  The 
Church,  towering  vast  in  the  midst  of  universal  super- 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


II 


stition,  lays  its  withering  finger  upon  the  freedom  of 
the  human  mind,  and  its  own  child,  leaping  from  its 
bosom,  denounces  to  the  world  his  mother’s  madness. 

I  speak,  of  course,  of  the  ideal  scholar,  of  what  the 
scholar  ought  to  be,  rather  than  of  the'  historical  men 
who  have  been  called  scholars  ;  and  yet,  I  think  we 
shall  find  the  man  whom  we  should  select  from  his¬ 
tory  as  the  scholar  as  also  the  man  who  most  nearly 
fulfils  the  conditions  I  have  mentioned. 

In  English  history,  which  is  also  our  history,  who  is 
the  scholar  ?  Is  it  Roger  Ascham,  a  pedant  and  a 
school-master?  Is  it  Ben  Jonson,  with  his  careless, 
cumbrous  ease,  borrowing  his  shilling,  fighting  his  duel, 
writing  his  plays  and  his  stately  verses,  and  lighting 
up  the  Mermaid  with  his  witty  revelry?  Is  it  either 
of  the  churchmen — even  Jeremy  Taylor,  whose  written 
wisdom  breathes  like  organ  music  through  English  lit¬ 
erature  ;  or  George  Herbert,  whose  life  shone  with  the 
beauty  of  holiness  ?  Is  it  the  sad  Swift,  the  versatile 
Addison,  the  keen  Pope,  or  the  fastidious  Gray,  noting 
when  crocuses  opened  and  roses  bloomed,  leaving  one 
poem  and  the  record  of  a  life  as  inoffensive  as  that  of 
a  college  cat ;  or  Bentley,  or  Porson,  or  Parr,  who  made 
valuable  notes  on  valuable  Greek  classics;  or  Dr.  John¬ 
son,  gravely  supporting  an  aristocratic  public  policy, 
while  he  powerfully  and  pathetically  rebuked  aristo¬ 
cratic  private  conduct?  Let  the  name  of  Dr.  Johnson 
never  be  mentioned  among  scholars  without  a  sad  re¬ 
spect  ;  but  is  he,  distinctively,  the  scholar  in  English 
history  ? 

There  is  one  man,  gentlemen,  I  have  not  mentioned. 


12 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


Your  hearts  go  before  my  tongue  to  name  him.  Tech¬ 
nical  scholarship  begins  in  a  dictionary  and  ends  in  a 
f  grammar.  The  sublime  scholarship  of  John  Milton  be¬ 
gan  in  literature  and  ended  in  life. 

Graced  with  every  intellectual  gift,  he  was  personally 
so  comely  that  the  romantic  woods  of  Vallambrosa  are 
lovelier  from  their  association  with  his  youthful  figure 
sleeping  in  their  shade.  He  had  all  the  technical  ex¬ 
cellences  of  the  scholar.  At  eighteen  he  wrote  better 
Latin  verses  than  have  been  written  in  England.  He 
replied  to  the  Italian  poets  who  complimented  him 
in  Italian  pure  as  their  own.  He  was  profoundly  skilled 
in  theology,  in  science,  and  in  the  literature  of  all  lan¬ 
guages. 

These  were  his  accomplishments,  but  his  genius  was 
vast  and  vigorous.  While  yet  a  youth  he  wrote  those 
minor  poems  which  have  the  simple  perfection  of  pro¬ 
ductions  of  nature ;  and  in  the  ripeness  of  his  wisdom 
and  power  he  turned  his  blind  eyes  to  heaven,  and 
sang  the  lofty  song  which  has  given  him  a  twin  glory 
with  Shakespeare  in  English  renown. 

It  is  much  for  one  man  to  have  exhausted  the  litera¬ 
ture  of  other  nations  and  to  have  enriched  his  own. 
But  other  men  have  done  this  in  various  degrees.  Mil- 
ton  went  beyond  it  to  complete  the  circle  of  his  charac¬ 
ter  as  the  scholar. 

You  know  the  culmination  of  his  life.  The  first 
scholar  in  England  and  in  the  world  at  that  time  ful¬ 
filled  his  office.  His  vocation  making  him  especially 
the  representative  of  liberty,  he  accepted  the  part  to 
which  he  was  naturally  called,  and,  turning  away  from 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


13 


all  the  blandishments  of  ease  and  fame,  he  gave  himself 
to  liberty  and  immortality. 

Is  the  scholar  a  puny,  timid,  conforming  man?  John 
Milton  showed  him  to  be  the  greatest  citizen  of  the 
greatest  commonwealth.  Disdaining  to  talk  of  the  lib¬ 
erty  of  the  Shunamites  when  the  liberty  of  English¬ 
men  was  imperilled,  he  exposed  the  details  of  a  blind 
tyranny  in  words  which  are  still  the  delight  and  refuge 
of  freedom,  and  whose  music  is  majestic  as  the  cause 
they  celebrate.  The  radiance  of  those  principles  is  still 
the  glory  of  history.  They  still  search  out  and  expose 
the  wiles  of  tyranny,  as  the  light  of  a  great  beacon, 
flashing  at  midnight  upon  a  mountain-top,  reveals  the 
tents  of  the  enemy  skulking  on  the  plain. 

While  the  men  of  Norfolk  and  of  the  fens  were  mus¬ 
tering  to  march  away  for  liberty — to  return  no  more — 
he  did  not  stay  to  conjugate  Greek  verbs  in  mi,  nor  con¬ 
ceive  that  the  scholar's  library  was  his  post  of  honor. 
In  words  that  are  the  eternal  rebuke  of  every  scholar,  of 
every  literary  man,  of  every  clergyman  who,  in  a  day 
when  human  liberty  is  threatened,  does  not  stand  for 
liberty,  but  cringes  under  the  courtesies  of  position, 
Milton  cries  to  us  across  two  hundred  years,  with  a 
voice  of  multitudinous  music,  like  that  of  a  great  wind 
in  a  forest :  “  I  cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered 
virtue,  unexercised  and  unbreathed,  that  never  sallies 
out  and  sees  her  adversary,  but  slinks  out  of  the  race 
where  that  immortal  garland  is  to  be  run  for,  notwith¬ 
standing  dust  and  heat.” 

Can  you  not  fancy  the  parish  beadles  getting  up  and 
walking  rapidly  away  from  such  sentiments  ?  Can  you 


14 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


not  fancy  all  the  noble  and  generous  hearts  in  the  world 
shouting  through  all  the  centuries,  “  Amen,  amen  !”  ? 

Gentlemen,  the  scholar  is  the  representative  of  thought 
among  men,  and  his  duty  to  society  is  the  effort  to  in¬ 
troduce  thought  and  the  sense  of  justice  into  human  af¬ 
fairs.  He  was  not  made  a  scholar  to  satisfy  the  news¬ 
papers  or  the  parish  beadles,  but  to  serve  God  and  man. 
While  other  men  pursue  what  is  expedient  and  watch 
with  alarm  the  flickering  of  the  funds,  he  is  to  pursue 
the  truth  and  watch  the  eternal  law  of  justice. 

But  if  this  be  true  of  the  scholar  in  general,  how  pe¬ 
culiarly  is  it  true  of  the  American  scholar,  who,  as  a 
citizen  of  a  republic,  has  not  only  an  influence  by  his 
word  and  example,  but,  by  his  vote,  a  direct  agency 
upon  public  affairs.  In  a  republic  which  decides  ques¬ 
tions  involving  the  national  welfare  by  a  majority  of 
voices,  whoever  refuses  to  vote  is  a  traitor  to  his  own 
;  cause,  whatever  that  cause  may  be ;  and  if  any  scholar 
will  not  vote,  nor  have  an  opinion  upon  great  public 
measures  because  that  would  be  to  mix  himself  with 
politics,  but  contents  himself  with  vague  declamation 
about  freedom  in  general,  knowing  that  the  enemies  of 
freedom  always  use  its  name,  then  that  scholar  is  a 
traitor  to  Liberty,  and  degrades  his  order  by  justifying 
the  reproach  that  the  scholar  is  a  pusillanimous  trimmer. 

The  American  scholar,  gentlemen,  has  duties  to  poli¬ 
tics  in  general ;  and  he  has,  consequently,  duties  in  every 
political  crisis  in  his  country.  What  his  duties  are  in 
this  crisis  of  our  national  affairs  I  shall  now  tell  you  as 
plainly  as  I  can.  The  times  are  grave,  and  they  demand 
sober  speech.  To  us  young  men  the  future  of  this 


•  THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  1 5 

country  is  intrusted.  What  names  does  history  love, 
and  every  honest  man  revere?  The  names  of  those 
who  gave  their  youth  and  strength  to  the  cause  which 
is  waiting  for  us  to  serve  it. 

Second, — the  object  of  human  government  is  human 
liberty.  Laws  restrain  the  encroachment  of  the  individ¬ 
ual  upon  society  in  order  that  all  individuals  may  be 
secured  the  freest  play  of  their  powers.  This  is  because 
the  end  of  society  is  the  improvement  of  the  individual 
and  the  development  of  the  race.  Liberty  is,  therefore, 
the  condition  of  human  progress,  and  consequently  that  j 
is  the  best  government  which  gives  to  men  the  largest 
liberty,  and  constantly  modifies  itself  in  the  interest  of 

-  J 

freedom. 

The  laws  of  society,  indeed,  deprive  men  of  liberty, 
and  even  of  life,  but  only  when  by  crime  they  have  be¬ 
come  injurious  to  society.  The  deprivation  of  the  life 
or  liberty  of  the  individual  under  other  circumstances 
is  the  outrage  of  those  rights  which  are  instinctively 
perceived  by  every  man,  but  are  beyond  argument  or 
proof. 

Human  slavery  annihilates  the  conditions  of  human 
progress.  Its  necessary  result  is  the  destruction  of  \  hu¬ 
manity  ;  and  this  not  only  directly  by  its  effect  upon 
the  slave,  but  indirectly  by  its  effect  upon  the  master. 
In  the  one  it  destroys  the  self-respect  which  is  the  basis 
of  manhood,  and  is  thus  a  capital  crime  against  human¬ 
ity.  In  the  other  it  fosters  pride,  indolence,  luxury,  and 
licentiousness,  which  equally  imbrute  the  human  being. 
Therefore,  in  the  slave  States  thore  is  no  literature,  no 
art,  no  progressive  civilization.  Manners  are  fantastic 


1 6  THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

and  fierce ;  brute  force  supplants  moral  principle ;  free¬ 
dom  of  speech  is  suppressed,  because  the  natural  speech 
of  man  condemns  slavery ,  a  sensitive  vanity  is  called 
honor,  and  cowardly  swagger,  chivalry ;  respect  for 
woman  is  destroyed  by  universal  licentiousness ;  lazy 
indifference  is  called  gallantry,  and  an  impudent  famil¬ 
iarity,  cordiality.  To  supply  by  a  travesty  of  courage 
the  want  of  manly  honor,  men  deliberately  shoot  those 
who  expose  their  falsehoods.  Therefore  they  go  armed 
with  knives  and  pistols,  for  it  is  a  cardinal  article  of  a 
code  of  false  honor  that  it  is  possible  for  a  bully  to  insult 
a  gentleman.  Founded  upon  crime — for  by  no  other 
word  can  man-stealing  be  characterized — the  prosperity 
of  such  a  people  is  at  the  mercy  of  an  indignant  justice. 
Hence  a  slave  society  has  the  characteristics  of  wander¬ 
ing  tribes,  which  rob,  and  live,  therefore,  insecure  in  the 

f 

shadow  of  impending  vengeance.  There  is  nothing  ad¬ 
mirable  in  such  a  society  but  what  its  spirit  condemns , 
there  is  nothing  permanent  in  it  but  decay.  Against  nat¬ 
ure,  against  reason,  against  the  human  instinct,  against 
the  divine  law,  the  institution  of  human  slavery  is  the 
most  dreadful  that  philosophy  contemplates  or  the  im- 

\  agination  conceives.  Certainly,  some  individual  slave¬ 
holders  are  good  men,  but  the  mass  of  men  are  never 
better  than  their  institutions*,  and  certainly  some  slaves 
are  better  fed  and  lodged  than  some  free  laborers,  but 
so  are  many  horses  better  fed  and  lodged  than  some 
free  laborers.  Is,  therefore,  a  laborer  to  abdicate  his 
manhood  and  become  a  horse  ?  And  certainly,  as  it  ex¬ 
ists,  God  may,  in  a  certain  sense,  be  said  to  permit  it ; 
but  in  the  same  way  God  permitted  the  slaughter  of  the 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  17 

innocents  in  Judea,  and  he  permitted  the  awful  railway 
slaughter,  not  a  month  ago,  near  Philadelphia.  Do  you 
mean  that  as  comfort  for  the  mothers  of  Judea  and  the 
mothers  of  Pennsylvania  ? 

History  confirms  what  philosophy  teaches.  The  East¬ 
ern  nations  and  the  Spanish  colonies,  Rome  in  her  de¬ 
cline  and  the  Southern  States  of  America,  display  a  so¬ 
ciety  of  which  the  spirit  is  similar,  however  much  the 
phenomena  may  differ.  Moral  self-respect  is  the  first 
condition  of  national  life,  as  labor  is  the  first  condition 
of  national  prosperity ;  but  the  laborer  cannot  have 
moral  respect  unless  he  be  free. 

The  true  national  policy,  therefore,  is  that  which  en¬ 
nobles  and  dignifies  labor.  Cincinnatus  upon  his  farm 
is  the  ideal  of  the  citizen.  But  slavery  disgraces  labor 
by  making  the  laborer  a  brute,  while  it  makes  the  slave¬ 
holder  the  immediate  rival  of  the  free  laborer  in  all  the 
markets  of  the  world.  Hence,  Tiberius  Gracchus,  one 
of  the  greatest  of  Roman  citizens,  early  saw  that,  in  a 
State  where  an  oligarchy  at  the  same  time  monopolized 
and  disgraced  labor,  there  must  necessarily  be  a  vast 
demoralized  population  who  would  demand  support  of 
the  State  and  be  ready  for  the  service  of  the  dema- 
/gogue,  who  is  always  the  tyrant.  Gracchus  was  killed, 
but  the  issue  proved  the  prophet.  The  canker  which 
Rome  cherished  in  her  bosom  ate  out  the  heart  of 
Rome,  and  the  empire  whose  splendor  flashed  over  the 
whole  world  fell  like  a  blighted  tree.  Not  until  slavery 
had  barbarized  the  great  mass  of  the  Romans  did  Rome 
fall  a  prey  to  the  barbarians  from  abroad. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  a  disgrace  for  all  of  us  that  in  this 
I.— 2 


1 8  THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 

country  and  in  this  year  of  our  history  the  occasion 
should  require  me  to  state  such  principles  and  facts 
as  these.  History  seems  to  be  an  endless  iteration. 
But  it  is  not  so.  Do  not  lose  heart.  It  only  seems 
so  because  there  has  been  but  one  great  cause  in 
human  affairs  —  the  cause  of  liberty.  In  a  thousand 
forms,  under  a  thousand  names,  the  old  contest  has 
been  waged.  It  divided  the  politics  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  of  England,  France,  America,  into  two  parties ; 
so  that  the  history  of  liberty  is  the  history  of  the 
world. 

As  American  citizens,  we  are  called  upon  to  fight 
that  battle  by  resisting  the  extension  of  the  institution 
which  I  have  described.  The  advocacy  of  the  area  of 
its  extension  is  not  a  whim  of  the  slave-power,  but  is 
based  upon  the  absolute  necessities  of  the  system.  An 
institution  which  is  mentally  and  morally  pernicious 
cannot  be  economically  advantageous.  To  suppose  so 
is  to  accuse  God  of  putting  a  premium  upon  sin. 
The  system  of  slave -labor,  by  demoralizing  the  popu¬ 
lation  and  exhausting  the  soil,  absolutely  demands  ex¬ 
pansion. 

Of  this  economical  fact  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The 
State  of  Virginia,  for  instance,  has  a  finer  climate,  richer 
and  cheaper  soils,  with  less  expensive  means  of  devel¬ 
oping  their  wealth,  than  Pennsylvania,  or  New  York,  or 
Massachusetts.  At  the  Revolution  Virginia  had  twice 
the  population  of  Pennsylvania,  much  more  disposable 
capital,  and  the  best  facilities  for  external  commerce 
and  internal  communication.  In  1850,  the  cash  value 
of  farms  in  Pennsylvania  was  $25  an  acre;  in  Virginia, 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


*9 


$8  an  acre.  In  New  Jersey,  with  a  soil  inferior  to  that 
of  Virginia,  the  average  value  of  farming  land  is  $44 
an  acre.  Governor  Johnson,  late  governor  of  Virginia, 
says  that  at  a  period  not  very  remote  her  trade  ex¬ 
ceeded  that  of  all  New  England,  and  Norfolk  surpassed 
New  York  in  the  extent  of  her  shipping.  At  the  Rev¬ 
olution,  the  commerce  of  Virginia  was  four  times  that 
of  New  York.  In  1853,  the  imports  into  New  York 
were  $180,000,000,  and  into  Virginia  less  than  $400,000. 
Lands  in  Virginia  capable  of  producing  twenty-five  to 
thirty  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre,  and  only  twenty- 
four  hours  by  rail  from  New  York,  are  to  be  had  for 
a  fortieth  of  the  price  of  similar  lands  in  New  York 
itself. 

Virginia  is  a  northern  slave  State,  but  a  senator  from 
Alabama,  the  most  southern  of  the  slave  States,  con¬ 
fesses  of  his  own  home  :  “  A  country  in  its  infancy, 
where  fifty  years  ago  scarce  a  forest -tree  had  been 
felled  by  the  pioneer,  is  already  exhibiting  the  pain¬ 
ful  signs  of  senility  and  decay  apparent  in  Virginia  and 
the  Carolinas.” 

These  are  specimens  of  the  statistics  which  are  to  be 
found  in  books  that  any  man  can  read.  All  the  trav¬ 
ellers  tell  the  same  story.  They  find  fat  slaves  and  a 
starved  and  exhausted  soil.  Desolation,  like  a  miasma/ 
broods  upon  the  land. 

Extension  of  area  is  therefore  vital  to  the  system,  \ 
and  we  shall  find  that  the  political  power  of  slavery  in 
the  United  States  has  been  constantly  directed  to  the 
acquisition  of  territory. 

When  the  Union  was  formed,  the  system  of  slave- 


20 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


labor  existed  in  all  of  the  States  except  Massachu¬ 
setts.  At  the  North,  however,  it  was  nominal  only ;  sev¬ 
eral  of  the  States  had  provided  for  its  removal,  and  it 
soon  disappeared.  The  Constitution  carefully  forbore 
to  mention  the  subject  of  slavery  by  name  ;  and  it  is 
an  axiom  that  every  grave  state  paper  is  to  be  inter¬ 
preted  by  the  well-known  opinions  of  its  authors  in 
the  matters  to  which  it  relates.  The  difficult  points 
in  settling  the  Constitution  were  those  which  relate  to 
slavery.  The  Convention  threatened  to  be  wrecked 
upon  it.  Now,  we  have  the  opinion  of  this  subject 
held  by  the  most  eminent  members  of  the  Constitu¬ 
tional  Convention,  expressed  either  in  debate  upon 
this  very  instrument  or  in  some  other  connection  with 
the  same  great  question.  In  1786,  George  Wash¬ 
ington  wrote  to  John  F.  Mercer:  “It  is  among  my 
first  wishes  to  see  some  plan  adopted  by  which  sla¬ 
very  in  this  country  may  be  abolished  by  law,”  and 
by  his  will  he  emancipated  his  own  negroes.  Thom¬ 
as  Jefferson  says,  in  his  “Notes  on  Virginia,”  “The 
whole  commerce  between  master  and  slave  is  a  con¬ 
tinual  exercise  of  the  most  unremitting  despotism  on 
the  one  part  and  degrading  submission  on  the  other. 
.  „  .  Indeed,  I  tremble  for  my  country  when  I  reflect 
that  God  is  just,  and  his  justice  cannot  sleep  forever”  ; 
and  Jefferson  introduced  into  the  Congress  of  the  old 
Confederation  the  famous  and  noble  free  clause  of  the 
Northwest  Ordinance.  Benjamin  Franklin  was  presi¬ 
dent  of  the  first  Abolition  Society.  In  the  Conven¬ 
tion,  Gouverneur  Morris,  of  Pennsylvania,  declared  it 
to  be  “  the  curse  of  Heaven  upon  the  State  where  it 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


21 


prevailed.”  Elbridge  Gerry,  of  Massachusetts,  said  the 
Convention  must  be  careful  not  to  give  any  sanction  to 
slavery.  James  Madison  thought  it  “  wrong  to  admit 
in  the  Constitution  the  idea  that  there  could  be  prop¬ 
erty  in  man.”  And  I  am  glad  to  say,  upon  the  banks 
of  this  river,  that  two  of  the  great  men  whom  Con¬ 
necticut  sent  to  that  Convention,  Oliver  Ellsworth  and 
Roger  Sherman,  both  protested  against  any  sanction  of 
the  system  by  the  Constitution. 

It  is  evident  that  the  fathers  regarded  slavery  with 
aversion,  and  as  an  institution  so  temporary  in  its  nat¬ 
ure  that,  although  essentially  hostile  to  the  very  objects 
of  the  Union,  it  should  not  be  a  bar  to  union.  But 
hating  it,  and  convinced  of  its  temporary  character, 
they  would  not  allow  the  great  charter  of  our  liberties 
to  be  defiled  with  its  name.  Persuaded  by  the  same 
spirit  of  concession  to  a  temporary  evil,  they  allowed 
the  slave-trade  to  continue  until  the  year  1808 — then  to 
be  terminated,  if  Congress  willed. 

But  with  the  beginning  of  the  new  government  be¬ 
gan  the  debate  upon  slavery.  In  the  very  first  Con¬ 
gress  Mr.  Parker,  of  Virginia,  said  that  the  clause  al¬ 
lowing  the  slave-trade  was  contrary  to  Revolutionary 
principles  and  ought  not  to  be  permitted.  Petitions 
against  the  slave-trade  and  slavery  began  to  present 
themselves.  Benjamin  Franklin  headed  an  antislavery 
petition  to  the  First  Congress  which  does  the  eyes  good 
to  read.  In  the  debate  upon  receiving  the  petitions 
concerning  the  slave-trade,  in  which  the  slave  party, 
before  the  Union  was  in  operation,  began  with  the  cry 
of  disunion,  James  Madison  said  that  Congress  might 


22 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


guard  against  the  introduction  of  slaves  into  new  ter¬ 
ritory. 

The  petitions  relating  to  the  subject  were  generally 
returned,  and  the  petitioners  were  in  every  way  reviled 
and  insulted  by  the  rank  slave-power. 

In  1798,  upon  the  question  of  the  erection  of  a  terri¬ 
torial  government  for  Mississippi,  the  bill  declared  that 
the  Territory  should  be  regulated  in  every  respect  like 
the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio,  excepting  only  that 
slavery  should  not  be  prohibited. 

Mr.  Thatcher,  of  Massachusetts,  moved  to  strike  out 
the  exception  and  prohibit  slavery,  in  accordance  with 
Jefferson’s  original  plan  of  prohibition  in  all  new  terri¬ 
tory,  south  as  well  as  north  of  the  Ohio.  He  said,  and 
his  words  have  still  the  eloquence  and  pertinence  of 
truth:  “We  are  about  to  establish  a  government  for  a 
new  country.  The  government  of  which  we  form  a 
part  originated  from,  and  is  founded  upon,  the  rights 
of  man,  and  upon  that  ground  we  mean  to  uphold  it. 
With  what  propriety,  then,  can  a  government  emanate 
from  us  in  which  slavery  is  not  only  tolerated,  but  sanc¬ 
tioned,  by  law  ?  It  has,  indeed,  been  urged  that  as  this 
Territory  will  be  settled  by  emigrants  from  the  Southern 
States,  they  must  be  allowed  to  have  slaves.  As  much 
as  to  say  that  the  people  of  the  South  are  fit  for  noth¬ 
ing  but  slave-drivers ;  that  if  left  to  their  own  labor  they 
would  starve.” 

At  such  sentiments  as  these,  boldly  uttered  by  an 
American  freeman,  when  the  country  was  yet  weak  with 
a  seven  years’  struggle  for  freedom,  the  slave -power 
shook  its  head  indignantly,  and  said  that  such  remarks 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


23 


were  very  mischievous,  and  rejected  Mr.  Thatcher’s  mo¬ 
tion. 

The  constant  threat  of  disunion,  which  was  freely  ut¬ 
tered  by  the  slave-power,  had  its  effect.  The  national 
slave-trade  was  prohibited,  but  not  without  clauses  which 
annulled  the  principle  of  the  bill  —  for  it  allowed  the 
forfeited  slaves  to  be  sold  if  a  State  so  decreed. 

The  slave  senators  said  that,  undoubtedly,  slavery  was 
a  misfortune.  Mr.  Macon,  of  North  Carolina,  said  it  was 
a  curse ;  but  the  country  had  it  and  must  not  talk  about 
it,  but  endure  it.  This  half-concession  of  the  justice  of 
the  antislavery  sentiment,  the  extreme  difficulties  of  in¬ 
augurating  the  new  government,  and  the  determination 
of  the  slave -power  to  be  humored  or  to  dissolve  the 
Union,  gradually  silenced  the  discussion.  Even  Jeffer¬ 
son  closed  his  mouth.  Other  questions  of  immediate 
importance  arose.  The  war  of  1812  was  to  be  fought. 
Meanwhile,  the  introduction  of  new  Southern  States, 
especially  adapted,  as  was  asserted,  to  slave -labor,  the 
sudden  and  immense  increase  of  the  cotton  interest, 
only  served  to  resolve  the  slave  -  power  to  make  the 
long  silence  upon  the  question  the  sleep  of  death. 

But  in  1819  the  volcano  began  to  smoke  once  more. 
Then  took  place  the  great  debate  upon  the  Missouri 
Compromise.  Mr.  Tallmadge,  of  New  York,  spoke  on 
the  occasion  for  America  and  mankind.  His  words 
have  so  singular  a  pertinence  to  the  debates  of  this  day 
in  Congress  that  I  quote  a  few  of  them : 

“  If  it  is  not  safe  now  to  discuss  slavery  on  this  floor, 
if  it  cannot  now  come  before  us  as  a  proper  subject  of 
general  legislation,  what  will  be  the  result  when  it  is 


24 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


spread  through  your  widely  -  extended  domain?  Its 
present  threatening  aspect,  and  the  violence  of  its  sup¬ 
porters,  so  far  from  inducing  me  to  yield  to  its  progress, 
prompt  me  to  resist  its  march.  Now  is  the  time  1  The 
extension  of  the  evil  must  now  be  prevented,  or  the 
opportunity  will  be  lost  forever.  ...  If  the  Western 
country  cannot  be  settled  without  slavery,  gladly  would 
I  prevent  its  settlement  till  time  shall  be  no  more.” 

Mr.  Cobb,  of  Georgia,  fixing  his  eyes  upon  Tallmadge, 
said,  as  the  slave  section  has  always  said,  that  if  the 
Northern  members  persisted,  the  Union  would  be  dis¬ 
solved. 

Mr.  Tallmadge — let  us  remember  his  name,  young 
Americans,  with  those  of  our  great  men — Mr.  Tallmadge 
said :  “  Language  of  this  sort  has  no  effect  upon  me. 
My  purpose  is  fixed.  It  is  interwoven  with  my  exist¬ 
ence.  Its  durability  is  limited  with  my  life.  It  is  a 
great  and  glorious  cause,  setting  bounds  to  slavery  the 
most  cruel  and  debasing  the  world  has  ever  witnessed. 
It  is  the  cause  of  the  freedom  of  man.” 

It  was  the  most  famous  debate  in  our  history.  Rufus 
King  frankly  declared  that  it  was  a  question  of  slave  or 
free  policy  in  the  national  government.  Every  argu¬ 
ment  that  has  been  used  in  the  discussion  by  the  slave- 
power  during  the  last  two  years  was  then  presented,  and 
completely  refuted  by  the  representatives  of  freedom. 
The  legislatures  of  the  States  especially  instructed  their 
representatives  how  to  vote.  The  country  shook  as  in 
the  toils  of  an  earthquake.  The  vote  was  taken,  and 
the  slave -power  conquered.  The  slave  delegations 
voted  in  a  body  for  the  bill,  and  Mr.  Pinckney  wrote 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  25 

home,  on  the  day  of  the  decision,  “  We  have  tri¬ 
umphed.”  The  slave -power  had  triumphed,  because 
the  Congress  of  a  free  people  had  agreed  to  allow  sla¬ 
very  in  territory  where  it  had  the  power  to  prohibit  it, 
this  power  being  expressly  acknowledged  by  a  slave 
President  and  a  cabinet  of  which  John  C.  Calhoun  was 
a  member.  It  had  extended  to  a  free  territory  the 
privilege  of  representation  upon  a  basis  of  slaves,  thus 
deliberately  preferring  the  slave  system  of  labor,  to 
which  privilege  there  was  not  the  shadow  of  claim,  and 
which  had  been  granted  to  the  Revolutionary  slave 
States  in  consideration  of  the  system  which  existed 
there  at  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  Union  and  of 
the  great  mutual  struggle  just  passed.  John  Quincy 
Adams,  also  one  of  the  cabinet,  recorded  his  opinion 
that  it  was  a  triumph  of  the  slave-power.  It  was  so 
considered  then.  Time  has  proved  it  since. 

At  the  same  time  with  the  passage  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  President  Monroe  ceded  to  Spain  the  re¬ 
gion  now  known  as  the  State  of  Texas,  in  consideration 
of  the  territory  embracing  the  State  of  Florida. 

This  completed  the  line  of  slavery  along  the  Atlantic. 
The  President  was  reproached  by  the  slave  party  for 
thus  ceding  territory  which  would  allow  a  free  State 
to  lie  on  the  very  lines  of  slavery.  Mr.  Monroe  wrote 
to  General  Jackson  that  the  cession  was  necessary  to 
pacify  the  Northern  sentiment.  He  knew  that  having 
secured  Florida  to  slavery,  Texas  could  be  retaken 
when  wanted.  General  Jackson  replied,  that  “  for  the 
present  we  ought  to  be  contented  with  the  Floridas.” 
We  meaning  the  slave-party. 


26 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


All  this  is  what  is  humorously  termed  “  a  settlement” 
of  the  slave  question — the  slave-power  having  “  settled  ” 
the  question  of  the  Territories  and  Texas  as  the  wolf 
settled  Little  Red  Riding  Hood  and  Little  Red  Riding 
Hood’s  Grandmother.  This  word  “settlement”  is  the 
eternal  tragical  joke  of  our  political  history. 

For  some  years  after  1820  the  subject  was  not  directly 
vexed,  but  the  resolution  of  the  slave-power  never  re¬ 
laxed.  If  the  moral  minority  from  the  North  ventured 
a  word  which  favored  a  decent  respect  for  the  principles 
of  our  government,  the  slave-power  had  only  to  shake 
its  gory  locks  and  cry  “  disunion,”  and  the  frightened 
North  hurried  to  abdicate  its  constitutional  rights  and 
moral  honor. 

In  1835,  Mr.  Calhoun,  the  most  sagacious  of  Southern 
statesmen,  opposed  the  reception  of  petitions  by  Con¬ 
gress  which  alluded  to  the  subject  of  slavery.  Even  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  slavery  denied  the  right  of  pe¬ 
tition,  because  it  must,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  deny 
every  natural  right  of  man  or  of  freemen.  The  moral 
minority,  headed  by  John  Quincy  Adams,  white-headed 
patriarch  of  Constitutional  liberty,  gave  battle.  Mr. 
Calhoun  cried  “disunion.”  The  slave -power  echoed 
“  disunion,”  and  the  right  of  petition  was  denied  to  free¬ 
men  by  the  legislators  they  had  themselves  appointed. 

This  was  an  immense  victory  for  the  slave -power, 
for  it  revealed  to  them  a  state  of  demoralization  in  the 
party  of  freedom.  It  showed  the  slave-power  that  it 
could  accomplish  its  ends  by  depending  upon  the 
moral  weakness  of  the  enemy  rather  than  upon  its  own 
numerical  strength.  The  historian  commemorates  a 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  27 

national  crime  when  he  records  that  during  all  these 
debates  the  party  of  freedom  had  a  majority  of  votes 
in  Congress. 

From  the  moment  of  this  clear  perception  of  North¬ 
ern  demoralization  the  course  of  the  slave -power  has 
been  swift  and  fearful.  Texas  was,  of  course,  soon  re¬ 
taken,  entailing  upon  us  a  war  with  Mexico,  and  open¬ 
ing  an  outlet  for  slavery  which  seemed  illimitable 
among  the  miserable  states  of  the  great  Isthmus. 

During  the  few  subsequent  years  the  national  de¬ 
moralization  seemed  to  be  complete.  The  great  Amer¬ 
ican  experiment  was  palpably  failing.  A  republic  or 
government  of  the  majority,  whose  permanent  prosper¬ 
ity  must  depend  upon  free  labor,  was  yielding  to  the 
policy  of  slave-labor  as  a  national  principle.  The  Fed¬ 
eral  government  in  its  most  important  initiative  func¬ 
tion,  that  of  making  the  organic  laws  of  new  Territo¬ 
ries,  was  administered  exclusively  for  the  benefit  of  a 
small  privileged  class,  that  privilege  resting  upon  the 
most  odious  human  crime.  The  Union  had  come  to 
mean  a  league  for  the  diffusion  of  slavery  among  men. 
The  Constitution  was  declared  to  have  been  framed 
to  nationalize  the  system,  and  was  so  interpreted.  It 
was  perfectly  understood  that  political  preferment  de¬ 
pended  upon  subservience  to  the  slave -power.  He 
only  could  be  chief  among  freemen,  he  only  head  of 
a  government  which  was  founded  to  secure  the  bless¬ 
ings  of  liberty,  who  favored  the  extension  of  human 
slavery. 

At  the  North  the  whole  question  was  settled  by  call¬ 
ing  it  a  very  difficult  question.  So  closely  entwined 


28 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


were  the  interest  of  trade  and  the  slave  system  that 
the  subject  was  not  allowed  to  be  discussed.  The  pro¬ 
fessed  abolitionists  were  reviled  as  fanatical  traitors, 
and  the  entire  practical  silence  of  the  North  was  justi¬ 
fied  by  saying  that  the  discussion  of  the  subject  had 
only  increased  the  difficulty  by  inflaming  the  slave- 
power  ;  as  if,  because  a  burglar  may  shoot  you  if  you 
oppose  him,  therefore  burglary  must  not  be  mentioned. 
The  question  was  considered  so  difficult  that  it  was 
never  asked.  We  were  sinking  deeper  and  deeper  in 
the  slough,  and,  because  it  was  so  very  hard  to  get  out, 
we  must  not  even  make  the  effort  to  escape  suffocation. 
Good  manners  forbade  all  allusion  to  slavery.  All 
places  which  Northerners  and  Southerners  frequented 
— Newport,  Saratoga,  the  mountains,  among  which  Lib¬ 
erty  was  born,  and  the  sea,  which  is  the  very  symbol  of 
Freedom,  across  which  she  has  fled  a  hundred  times 
to  found  her  immortal  empire — were  silent  over  the 
spreading  pestilence.  The  pulpit  held  its  tongue ;  the 
press,  which  in  a  free  land  should  be  the  alarm  bell  of 
liberty,  was  muffled.  If  a  man  from  the  free  States  died 
for  liberty,  as  Lovejoy  died  at  Alton,  he  was  called  a 
fanatical  fool,  and  Freedom  had  no  other  epitaph  for  her 
martyr.  Other  countries  to  which  we  superciliously  as¬ 
serted  our  superiority  asked,  contemptuously,  “  What  is 
this  Republic  which  makes  cattle  of  men,  and  whips 
women  when  they  grieve  that  their  children  are  sold 
away  from  them?”  And  we  replied,  “You  don’t  un¬ 
derstand  the  peculiarities  of  the  situation.”  We  tried 
to  believe  that  the  slave -power  regretted  slavery,  be¬ 
cause  it  said,  with  every  new  link  of  the  chain  it  forged, 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


29 


that  it  was  a  great  misfortune.  But  when  the  chain 
was  long  enough  and  strong  enough,  as  it  had  now 
grown  to  be,  the  slave-power  deserted  the  old  ground 
that  the  system  was  a  necessary  but  temporary  evil,  and 
claimed  that  slavery  was  a  divinely-appointed  mission¬ 
ary  system  for  the  Africans — an  institution  just  in  itself 
and  profitable  for  the  country. 

The  two  most  eminent  living  statesmen,  Mr.  Clay  and 
Mr.  Webster,  protested,  indeed,  that  they  were  opposed 
to  the  extension  of  slave  territory.  But  Mr.  Clay  was  > 
himself  a  slave-holder,  and  a  little  later  Mr.  Webster  re¬ 
fused  to  vote  to  prohibit  slavery  in  free  territory. 

The  slave-power  was  mad  with  its  own  success.  Its 
pride  grew  purple  with  audacity.  It  called  smooth, 
complaisant  men  in  the  free  States,  who  forbore  to  say 
that  slavery  was  a  sin,  and  who  worked  hard  in  the  in¬ 
terest  of  the  slave -power,  patriots  and  lovers  of  the 
Union — as  if  a  political  and  commercial  union  might 
not  be  bought  at  too  dear  a  price.  But,  pursuing  its 
great  end — namely,  the  absolute  numerical  control  of 
the  federal  government — the  slave -power  tried  once 
more  the  quality  of  free-State  humanity  and  patriotism. 
The  Fugitive-slave  Bill  was  passed. 

I  say  no  more  of  that  bill  than  that  it  manifestly  pre¬ 
fers  the  inhuman  letter  of  the  law  to  the  justice  which 
is  the  end  of  all  law.  It  was  a  measure  in  the  interest 
of  slavery  and  not  of  freedom,  and  it  was  passed  under 
the  old  threat  of  disunion  from  the  slave-power.  But, 
the  North  seemed  to  be  eager  for  shame.  The  free 
States  hurried  to  kiss  the  foot  of  the  monstrous  power 
that  claimed  the  most  servile  allegiance.  Gessler  put  his 


30 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


cap  upon  the  pole,  the  people  bowed  in  homage,  and 
the  fainting  hope  of  the  world  murmured,  “  Then  Will¬ 
iam  Tell  is  dead.” 

History  is  not  a  series  of  causeless  consequences. 
Event  follows  event  in  time,  as  minute  follows  minute 
in  the  day.  I  tell  you  that  if  the  slave-power  had  not 
found  itself  obsequiously  courted  by  what  was  called 
the  respectable  public  opinion  of  Boston  to  do  its  worst 
wrong  in  the  very  shadow  of  Faneuil  Hall,  a  son  of 
Boston  and  a  senator  from  Massachusetts  would  never 
have  been  smitten  to  the  floor,  unawares  and  defence¬ 
less,  for  having  spoken  to  a  greater  issue  of  the  same 
cause  for  which  Samuel  Adams  and  James  Otis  spoke, 
and  Joseph  Warren  fell. 

The  course  of  the  slave  -  power  was  now  reckless. 
There  was  no  longer  need  of  concealment  or  modera¬ 
tion  when  its  natural  enemy  was  its  most  servile  ally. 
It  resolved  to  strike  one  final  blow  to  secure  the  future 
and  to  put  the  question  of  slavery  extension  beyond 
debate.  Human  affairs  are  uncertain.  The  support  it 
had  received  from  the  North  might  be  withdrawn. 
There  might  be  a  reaction.  Freedom  might  resume 
that  actual  superiority  which  it  still  had  numerically  in 
Congress.  The  circumstances  attending  the  passage  of 
the  Fugitive-slave  Bill  having  exposed  the  entire  de¬ 
moralization  of  the  free  majority,  it  was  to  be  supposed 
that  no  resistance  would  be  made  to  any  audacity. 

In  that  spirit,  and  with  that  knowledge,  the  Missouri 
Compromise  was  repealed,  and  all  the  western  territory 
of  the  United  States,  larger  in  area  than  all  the  settled 
States,  was  opened  to  the  possibility  of  slave-labor. 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


31 


The  slave-power  threw  off  every  mask  of  nationality,  of 
common  honor,  and  of  common  decency.  It  deliber¬ 
ately  did  a  deed  which  would  have  caused  an  individ¬ 
ual  to  be  hooted  from  the  society  of  honest  men  and 
branded  as  a  liar.  Its  darling  doctrine  was  that  the 
Union  is  a  contract.  But  a  national  contract  exists 
only  in  the  honor  of  the  parties,  and  the  slave-power  re¬ 
pudiated  its  honor  as  it  had  lost  its  shame.  As  a  man 
swindles  a  friend  to  support  a  prostitute  who  ruins  him 
soul  and  body,  so  the  slave-power  broke  its  faith  with 
the  free  States  to  cherish  an  institution  which  has  been 
its  physical  and  moral  destruction.  Whom  the  gods 
would  destroy  they  first  madden,  and  so  lawless,  so  au¬ 
dacious,  so  appalling,  was  this  assault  upon  the  slavish 
submission  of  the  free  States,  that  it  instantly  restored 
to  them  their  sight,  if  not  their  strength,  and,  God  will¬ 
ing,  the  glad  future  shall  cry  that  William  Tell  was  not 
dead  but  sleeping. 

Y 


government,  and  you  know  that  the  president  of  the 
United  States  Senate  which  passed  the  bill  himself  led 
hordes  of  men  from  Missouri  and  controlled  the  elec¬ 
tions  against  the  people  of  Kansas.  You  know  that 
the  delegates  so  elected  passed  laws  for  the  Territory 
which  outraged  humanity,  common-sense,  and  the  Con¬ 
stitution  of  the  United  States.  You  know  that  the 
people  of  Kansas  refused  to  submit  to  a  Missouri  mob. 


I^sh^U.  not  repeat  the  history  of  the  Kansas  iniquity. 
|w  that  every  one  of  the  slight  pretences  of  pro- 
>r  free  institutions  in  Mr.  Douglas’s  bill  was 
ply  destroyed.  You  know  that  the  bill  af- 


ime 


cted  to  allc'w  the  people  of  Kansas  to  settle  their  own 


32 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


You  know  that  the  President  of  the  United  States  en¬ 
deavored  to  compel  that  submission  by  means  of  the 
national  army.  It  was  the  final  triumph  of  the  slave- 
power.  Its  success  could  not  be  greater.  The  Presi¬ 
dent  of  the  United  States  orders  the  army  of  the 
United  States  to  force  slavery  upon  a  free  territory, 
and  while  I  speak  to  you  the  crime  goes  on.  But  also 
while  I  speak  to  you  twenty  millions  of  a  moral  people, 
politically  dedicated  to  liberty,  are  asking  themselves 
whether  their  government  shall  be  administered  solely 
in  the  interest  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
slave-holders. 

At  last  we  are  overtaken  by  a  sense  of  the  grandeur 
of  the  issue  before  us ;  but  so  long  did  God  delay  the 
dawning  that  good  men  despaired  of  day. 

Do  you  ask  me  our  duty  as  scholars?  Gentlemen, 
thought,  which  the  scholar  represents,  is  life  and  liberty. 
There  is  no  intellectual  or  moral  life  without  liberty. 
Therefore,  as  a  man  must  breathe  and  see  befo|^^^  :an 
study,  the  scholar  must  have  liberty,  first  of  as 

the  American  scholar  is  a  man  and  has  a  vc^B^his 
own  government,  so  his  interest  in  political  a^H*,  must 
precede  all  others.  He  must  build  his  house  before  he 
can  live  in  it.  He  must  be  a  perpetual  inspiration  of 
freedom  in  politics.  He  must  recognize  that  the  intelli¬ 
gent  exercise  of  political  rights  which  is  a  privilege  in  a 
monarchy,  is  a  duty  in  a  republic.  If  it  clash  with  his 
ease,  his  retirement,  his  taste,  his  study,  let  it  clash,  but 
let  him  do  his  duty.  The  course  of  events  is  incessant, 
and  when  the  good  deed  is  slighted,  the  bad  deed  is 
done. 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


33 


Young  scholars,  young  Americans,  young  men,  we 
are  all  called  upon  to  do  a  great  duty.  Nobody  is  re¬ 
leased  from  it.  It  is  a  work  to  be  done  by  hard  strokes, 
and  everywhere.  I  see  a  rising  enthusiasm,  but  en¬ 
thusiasm  is  not  an  election ;  and  I  hear  cheers  from  the 
heart,  but  cheers  are  not  votes.  Every  man  must  labor 
with  his  neighbor — in  the  street,  at  the  plough,  at  the 
bench,  early  and  late,  at  home  and  abroad.  Generally 
we  are  concerned,  in  elections,  with  the  measures  of 
government.  This  time  it  is  with  the  essential  princi¬ 
ple  of  government  itself.  Therefore  there  must  be  no 
doubt  about  our  leader.  He  must  not  prevaricate,  or 
stand  in  the  fog,  or  use  terms  to  court  popular  favor, 
which  every  demagogue  and  traitor  has  always  used. 
If  he  says  he  favors  the  interest  of  the  whole  country, 
let  him  frankly  say  whether  he  thinks  the  interest  of  the 
whole  country  demands  the  extension  of  slavery.  If  he 
declares  for  the  Union,  let  him  say  whether  he  means  a 
Union  for  freedom  or  for  slavery.  If  he  swear  by  the 
Constitution,  let  him  state,  so  that  the  humblest  free 
laborer  can  hear  and  understand,  whether  he  believes 
the  Constitution  means  to  prefer  slave  labor  to  free 
labor  in  the  national  representation  of  the  Territories. 
Ask  him  as  an  honest  man,  in  a  great  crisis,  if  he  be  for 
the  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  slavery  extension,  or 
for  “  Liberty  and  union,  now  and  forever,  one  and  in- 

*  A- 

separable.” 

Scholars,  you  would  like  to  loiter  in  the  pleasant 
paths  of  study.  Every  man  loves  his  ease — loves  to 
please  his  taste.  But  into  how  many  homes  along  this 
lovely  valley  came  the  news  of  Lexington  and  Bunker 
1—3 


34 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR 


Hill  eighty  years  ago;  and  young  men  like  us,  studious, 
fond  of  leisure,  young  lovers,  young  husbands,  young 
brothers,  and  sons,  knew  that  they  must  forsake  the 
wooded  hillside,  the  river  meadows  golden  with  harvest, 
the  twilight  walk  along  the  river,  the  summer  Sunday 
in  the  old  church,  parents,  wife,  child,  mistress,  and  go 
away  to  uncertain  war.  Putnam  heard  the  call  at  his 
plough,  and  turned  to  go  without  waiting.  Wooster 
heard  it  and  obeyed. 

Not  less  lovely  in  those  days  was  this  peaceful  valley, 
not  less  soft  this  summer  air.  Life  was  as  dear,  and 
love  as  beautiful,  to  those  young  men  as  to  us  who 
stand  upon  their  graves.  But  because  they  were  so 
dear  and  beautiful  those  men  went  out,  bravely  to  fight 
for  them  and  fall.  Through  these  very  streets  they 
marched,  who  never  returned.  They  fell  and  were  bur¬ 
ied  ;  but  they  can  never  die.  Not  sweeter  are  the  flow¬ 
ers  that  make  your  valley  fair,  not  greener  are  the  pines 
that  give  your  river  its  name,  than  the  memory  of  the 
brave  men  who  died  for  freedom.  And  yet  no  vic¬ 
tim  of  those  days,  sleeping  under  the  green  sod  of  Con¬ 
necticut,  is  more  truly  a  martyr  of  Liberty  than  every 
murdered  man  whose  bones  lie  bleaching  in  this  sum¬ 
mer  sun  upon  the  silent  plains  of  Kansas. 

Gentlemen,  while  we  read  history  we  make  history. 
Because  our  fathers  fought  in  this  great  cause,  we  must 
not  hope  to  escape  fighting.  Because  two  thousand 
years  ago  Leonidas  stood  against  Xerxes,  we  must  not 
suppose  that  Xerxes  was  slain,  nor,  thank  God !  that 
Leonidas  is  not  immortal.  Every  great  crisis  of  human 
history  is  a  pass  of  Thermopylae,  and  there  is  always  a 


THE  DUTY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  SCHOLAR  35 

Leonidas  and  his  three  hundred  to  die  in  it,  if  they  can¬ 
not  conquer.  And  so  long  as  Liberty  has  one  martyr, 
so  long  as  one  drop  of  blood  is  poured  out  for  her,  so 
long  from  that  single  drop  of  bloody  sweat  of  the  agony 
of  humanity  shall  spring  hosts  as  countless  as  the  forest 
leaves  and  mighty  as  the  sea. 

Brothers !  the  call  has  come  to  us.  I  bring  it  to  you 
in  these  calm  retreats.  I  summon  you  to  the  great 
fight  of  Freedom.  I  call  upon  you  to  say  with  your 
voices,  whenever  the  occasion  offers,  and  with  your 
votes  when  the  day  comes,  that  upon  these  fertile  fields 
of  Kansas,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  continent,  the  upas- 
tree  of  slavery,  dripping  death-dews  upon  national  pros¬ 
perity  and  upon  free  labor,  shall  never  be  planted.  I 
call  upon  you  to  plant  there  the  palm  of  peace,  the  vine 
and  the  olive  of  a  Christian  civilization.  I  call  upon 
you  to  determine  whether  this  great  experiment  of  hu¬ 
man  freedom,  which  has  been  the  scorn  of  despotism, 
shall,  by  its  failure,  be  also  our  sin  and  shame.  I  call 
upon  you  to  defend  the  hope  of  the  world. 

The  voice  of  our  brothers  who  are  bleeding,  no  less 
than  of  our  fathers  who  bled,  summons  us  to  this  bat¬ 
tle.  Shall  the  children  of  unborn  generations,  cluster¬ 
ing  over  that  vast  western  empire,  rise  up  and  call  us 
blessed  or  cursed?  Here  are  our  Marathon  and  Lex¬ 
ington  ;  here  are  our  heroic  fields.  The  hearts  of  all 
good  men  beat  with  us.  The  fight  is  fierce — the  issue 
is  with  God.  But  God  is  good. 


\ 


II 

PATRIOTISM 

AN  ORATION  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  GRADUATING  CLASS  AT 
UNION  COLLEGE,  SCHENECTADY,  N.  Y.,  JULY  20,  1857 


The  following  oration,  first  delivered  before  the  graduating 
class  at  Union  College,  Schenectady,  N.  Y.,  on  July  20th,  1857, 
was  repeated,  on  July  29th,  before  the  Literary  Societies  of  Dart¬ 
mouth  College,  Hanover,  N.  H. ;  on  July  31st,  at  the  Normal 
School  in  Westfield,  Mass. ;  and  on  September  3d,  at  Brown  Uni¬ 
versity,  Providence,  R.  I.  It  was  published  in  the  New  York 
Tribune,  September  4th,  and  in  the  Anti-Slavery  Standard,  Sep¬ 
tember  1 2th. 

The  year  which  had  passed  since  the  delivery  of  the  preceding 
oration  had  been  marked  by  the  election  of  Mr.  Buchanan,  the 
proslavery  candidate,  to  the  Presidency,  and  by  the  decision  of 
the  Dred  Scott  case  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
Chief  Justice  Taney  had  read  his  opinion  in  the  case  on  March 
6th,  two  days  after  the  inauguration  of  Mr.  Buchanan — an  opin¬ 
ion  in  which  it  was  declared  that  negroes  were  not  citizens  un¬ 
der  the  Constitution,  and  that  Congress  had  no  right  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  Territories.  The  infamous  Fugitive  -  slave  Law 
was  in  operation.  The  power  of  slavery  had  never  been  so 
firmly  established  or  so  threatening.  The  governor  of  South 
Carolina  had  recommended,  in  a  message  to  the  Legislature,  the 
reopening  of  the  slave-trade. 

But  the  antislavery  sentiment  of  the  North  was  growing  in 
intensity  in  proportion  to  the  aggressive  action  and  apparent 
success  of  the  upholders  of  slavery.  And  in  confirming  this 
sentiment  Mr.  Curtis  was  engaged. 


PATRIOTISM 


GENTLEMEN:  —  Day  by  day,  wherever  our  homes 
may  be  in  this  great  land,  we  have  watched  the  pass- 
ing  pageant  of  the  year.  Day  by  day,  from  the  first 
quick  flush  of  April,  through  the  deeper  green  and  rich¬ 
er  bloom  of  May  and  June,  we  have  seen  the  advancing 
season  develop  and  increase  until,  at  last,  among  roses 
and  golden  grain,  the  year  stood  perfect  in  midsummer 
splendor. 

As  you  have  contemplated  the  brief  glory  of  our 
summer,  where  the  clover  almost  blooms  out  of  snow¬ 
drifts  and  the  red  apples  drop  almost  with  the  white 
blossoms,  you  have,  perhaps,  remembered  that  the 
flower  upon  the  tree  was  only  the  ornament  of  a  mo¬ 
ment,  a  brilliant  part  of  the  process  by  which  the  fruit 
was  formed,  and  that  the  perfect  fruit  itself  was  but  the 
seed-vessel  by  which  the  race  of  the  tree  was  contin¬ 
ued  from  year  to  year. 

Then,  have  you  followed  the  exquisite  analogy — that 
youth  is  the  aromatic  flower  upon  the  tree ;  the  grave 
life  of  maturer  years  its  sober,  solid  fruit ;  and  the  prin¬ 
ciples  and  character  deposited  by  that  life  the  seeds  by 
which  the  glory  of  this  race,  also,  is  perpetuated? 


40 


PATRIOTISM 


The  flower  in  your  hand  fades  while  you  look  at  it ; 
the  dream  that  allures  you  glimmers  and  is  gone.  But 
both  flower  and  dream,  like  youth  itself,  are  buds  and 
prophecies.  For  where,  without  the  perfumed  bloom¬ 
ing  of  the  spring  orchards  all  over  the  hills  and  among 
the  valleys  of  New  England  and  New  York,  would  the 
happy  harvests  of  New  York  and  New  England  be?  and 
where,  without  the  dreams  of  the  young  men  lighting  the 
future  with  human  possibility,  would  be  the  deeds  of  the 
old  men  dignifying  the  past  with  human  achievement  ? 

Gentlemen,  how  deeply  does  it  become  us  to  trust  in 
the  promise  of  youth  and  to  believe  in  its  fulfilment — 
us,  who  are  not  only  young  ourselves,  but  living  with 
the  youth  of  the  youngest  nation  in  history. 

I  congratulate  you  that  you  are  young;  I  congratu¬ 
late  you  that  you  are  Americans. 

Life  is  beginning  for  us ;  but  the  life  of  every  nation, 
as  of  every  individual,  is  a  battle,  and  the  victory  is  to 
those  who  fight  with  faith  and  undespairing  devotion. 
Knowing  that  nothing  is  worth  fighting  for  at  all  unless 
God  reigns,  let  us  believe  at  least  as  much  in  the  good¬ 
ness  of  God  as  we  do  in  the  dexterity  of  the  Devil. 
And,  viewing  this  prodigious  spectacle  of  our  country 
— this  hope  of  humanity  —  this  young  America,  our 
America,  taking  the  sun  full  in  the  front,  and  making 
for  the  future  as  boldly  and  blithely  as  the  young  David 
for  Goliath — let  us  believe  in  our  own  hopes  with  all  our 
hearts,  and  out  of  that  faith  shall  spring  the  fact  that 
David,  and  not  Goliath,  is  to  win  the  day. 

Only  by  the  religious  resolution  of  every  successive 
generation  of  young  Americans  shall  the  great  ideas  out 


PATRIOTISM 


41 


of  which  America  sprang,  the  cardinal  principles  of  re¬ 
ligious  and  civil  liberty,  still  guide  and  determine  the 
development  of  its  destiny. 

To-day,  therefore,  we  turn  to  no  black-letter  lore. 
Scholars  do  not  need  to  hear  of  the  value  of  scholar¬ 
ship.  The  finest  scholarship  is  but  a  single  grace  of  the 
man.  How  can  the  man  best  be  developed  in  Amer¬ 
ica?  That  is  a  question  to  which  the  Future  bends  its 
ear.  Let  us,  then,  look  at  the  tie  which  binds  us  to 
that  country,  and  consider  the  nature,  responsibility, 
and  duties  of  Patriotism. 

It  was  not  his  olive-valleys  and  almond-groves  which 
made  the  Greece  of  the  Greek.  It  was  not  for  his  ap¬ 
ple-orchards  or  potato-fields  that  the  farmers  of  New 
England  and  New  York  left  their  ploughs  in  the  furrows 
and  marched  to  Bunker  Hill,  to  Bennington,  to  Sara¬ 
toga.  The  rains  fall,  the  earth  yields,  fruits  ripen,  and 
the  world  is  fair,  whether  George  is  King  or  James  is 
President ;  whether  armies  are  marching  to  shoot  and 
slay,  or  troops  of  children  laugh  in  the  meadows,  pick¬ 
ing  buttercups  and  daisies. 

When  we  speak  of  Greece,  our  chief  interest  is  not  in 
a  certain  number  of  square  miles  of  ground — so  much 
water,  so  many  trees — it  is  not  geographical  or  botan¬ 
ical  or  geological ;  but  it  is  in  our  association  with  the 
history  of  a  people  and  a  certain  character  that  we  call 
Greek:  so  with  the  French,  the  Italian,  the  German, 
and  the  English. 

But  these  qualities,  although  marking  distinctively 
these  races,  are  not  theirs  exclusively ;  they  belong  to 
human  nature  at  large. 


42 


PATRIOTISM 


National  characteristics  are  neither  absolute  nor  inva¬ 
riable  differences.  But  just  as  the  individuals  of  particu¬ 
lar  nations  have  a  general  resemblance  to  each  other,  so 
have  all  the  nations  themselves  ;  and  as  the  dividing  line 
between  Italy  and  Germany  is  a  purely  arbitrary  divi¬ 
sion,  and  for  many  miles  on  each  side  of  it  the  inhabi¬ 
tants  are  homogeneous  ;  as  Suabia  and  Saxony  and  Han¬ 
over  are  imperceptibly  separated  from  each  other,  yet 
all  make  one  Germany  together ;  so  national  character¬ 
istics  continually  blend  and  mingle,  and  gradually  lead 
us  to  the  reflection  that,  as  the  substance  of  the  globe 
upon  which  we  live  and  the  substance  of  human  bodies 
are,  at  last,  the  same,  so  the  races  are  but  one  race,  hu¬ 
man  nature  is  everywhere  endowed  with  the  same  rights 
and  duties,  and  thus  Christianity,  or  the  doctrine  and 
practice  of  universal  brotherhood,  becomes  simply  the 
ethical  statement  of  a  scientific  fact. 

In  whatever  country  and  whatever  case  a  man  may 
chance  to  be  born,  he  is  born  a  citizen  of  the  world, 
and  bound  by  the  universal  rule  of  right  or  law  of  God. 
God  writes  that  law  upon  the  man’s  perceptions,  and  we 
call  it  conscience,  or  God  in  him.  Proper  manhood  is 
the  fruit  of  obedience  to  that  law.  Countries  and  fami¬ 
lies  are  but  nurseries  and  influences.  A  man  is  a  fa¬ 
ther,  a  brother,  a  son,  a  German,  a  Roman,  an  Ameri¬ 
can  ;  but  beneath  all  these  relations  he  is  a  man.  The 
end  of  his  human  destiny  is  surely  not  to  be  the  best 
German  or  the  best  Roman  or  the  best  father,  but  the 
best  man  he  can  be. 

History  shows  us  that  this  association  of  men  in  va¬ 
rious  relations  is  made  subservient  to  the  gradual  ad- 


PATRIOTISM 


43 


vance  and  advantage  of  the  whole  human  race,  and 
that  all  nations  work  together  towards  one  great  result. 

So  to  the  philosophic  eye  the  race  is  but  a  vast  car¬ 
avan,  forever  moving,  but  seeming  often  to  encamp  for 
centuries ;  to  halt  at  some  green  oasis  of  ease,  where 
the  siren  Luxury  lures  away  Heroism,  as  soft  Capua 
enervated  the  hosts  of  Hannibal.  But  still  the  march 
proceeds,  slowly,  slowly,  over  mountains,  through  val¬ 
leys,  along  plains ;  marking  its  course  with  monumen¬ 
tal  splendors  —  cities,  arts,  literatures,  histories  —  with 
wars,  plagues,  murders,  private  selfishness,  and  public 
crime ;  advancing  still,  decorated  with  all  the  pomp  of 
nature,  counselled  by  the  seasons,  lit  by  the  constella¬ 
tions,  cheered  by  the  future,  warned  by  the  past.  In 
that  vast  march  the  van  forgets  the  rear,  the  individual 
is  lost — and  yet  the  multitude  is  but  many  individuals ; 
— he  faints  and  falls  and  dies  ;  his  heart  wavers,  his  hope 
expires ;  man  is  forgotten,  but  still  mankind  moves  on, 
still  worlds  revolve,  and  the  will  of  God  is  done  in 
earth  and  in  heaven. 

Viewing  its  many  tragic  steps,  we  must  not  wonder 
that  men  have  gravely  asked  if  the  race  were  not  utter¬ 
ly  lost.  Nature  mocks  us,  they  say.  A  rose  is  perfect. 
No  imagination  of  a  rose  could  change  it ;  but  man,  the 
darling  of  creation,  for  whom  roses  blow  and  stars  shine 
and  the  spheres  sing — man,  the  tenant  of  time  and  heir 
of  eternity,  lies,  cheats,  steals  ;  repeats  to-day  the  crime, 
and  mumbles  to-morrow  the  excuse  of  yesterday  ;  satis¬ 
fied  to  be  no  meaner  than  other  men,  to  live  without 
friction,  and  die  without  faith. 

Human  history  seems  but  a  series  of  wars  and  in- 


44 


PATRIOTISM 


trigues.  Our  best  literature,  Shakespeare,  Dante,  Goethe, 
Bacon,  Fenelon,  is  a  sigh,  a  sermon,  a  satire,  or  a  dream  ; 
and  art  instinctively  seeks  the  ideal  or  possible,  instead 
of  the  real  or  actual,  humanity.  The  survey  breeds  a 
hopeless  scepticism  or  a  more  disastrous  sophistry. 
Seeing  the  ignorance,  the  war,  the  pestilence,  the  sla¬ 
very,  men  ask,  “  Is  it  not  inevitable  ?  Does  not  God 
permit  it  all  ?  If  we  do  the  wrong  will  he  not  work  it 
to  the  right,  and,  in  any  event,  if  the  crime  is  to  be 
done  must  not  somebody  be  the  criminal?” 

And  so  we  have  Malthusian  theories,  and  prayers  to 
the  God  of  battles,  and  gildings  and  gloryings  of  pira¬ 
cy  and  robbery  and  slavery.  But  over  all  thunders 
still  the  curse,  “  It  must  needs  be  that  offences  come ; 
but  woe  to  him  by  whom  the  offence  cometh !” 

Patriotism,  or  the  peculiar  relation  of  an  individual  to 
his  country,  is  like  the  family  instinct.  In  the  child  it 
is  a  blind  devotion  ;  in  the  man  an  intelligent  love.  The 
patriot  perceives  the  claim  made  upon  his  country  by 
the  circumstances  and  time  of  her  growth  and  power, 
and  how  God  is  to  be  served  by  using  those  opportuni¬ 
ties  of  helping  mankind.  Therefore  his  country’s  honor 
is  dear  to  him  as  his  own,  and  he  would  as  soon  lie 
and  steal  himself  as  assist  or  excuse  his  country  in  a 
crime. 

Right  and  Wrong,  Justice  and  Crime,  exist  indepen¬ 
dently  of  our  country.  A  public  wrong  is  not  a  private 
right  for  any  citizen.  The  citizen  is  a  man  bound  to 
know  and  to  do  the  right,  and  the  nation  is  but  an 
aggregation  of  citizens.  If  a  man  shout,  “  My  country, 
by  whatever  means  extended  and  bounded ;  my  coun- 


PATRIOTISM 


45 


try,  right  or  wrong,”  he  merely  utters  words  such  as 
those  might  be  of  the  thief  who  steals  in  the  street,  or 
of  the  trader  who  swears  falsely  at  the  Custom-house, 
both  of  them  chuckling,  “  My  fortune,  however  ac¬ 
quired.” 

Thus,  gentlemen,  we  see  that  a  man’s  country  is  not 
a  certain  area  of  land,  of  mountains,  rivers,  and  woods, 
but  it  is  a  principle :  and  patriotism  is  loyalty  to  that 
principle.  In  poetic  minds  and  in  popular  enthusiasm 
this  feeling  becomes  closely  associated  with  the  soil  and 
the  symbols  of  the  country.  But  the  secret  sanctifica¬ 
tion  of  the  soil  and  the  symbol  is  the  idea  which  they 
represent,  and  this  idea  the  patriot  worships  through 
the  name  and  the  symbol,  as  a  lover  kisses  with  rapture 
the  glove  of  his  mistress  and  wears  a  lock  of  her  hair 
upon  his  heart. 

So,  with  passionate  heroism,  of  which  tradition  is 
never  weary  of  tenderly  telling,  Arnold  von  Winkelried 
gathers  into  his  bosom  the  sheaf  of  foreign  spears,  that 
his  death  may  give  life  to  his  country  ;  so  Nathan  Hale, 
disdaining  no  service  that  his  country  demands,  perishes 
untimely,  with  the  sense  of  duty  done  and  of  God  as 
his  friend.  So,  through  all  history  from  the  beginning, 
a  noble  army  of  martyrs  has  fought  fiercely  and  fallen 
bravely  for  that  unseen  mistress,  their  country.  So 
through  all  history  to  the  end,  as  long  as  men  believe 
in  God,  that  army  must  still  march  and  fight  and  fall ; 
recruited  only  from  the  flower  of  mankind,  cheered 
only  by  their  own  hope  for  humanity,  strong  only  in 
their  confidence  in  their  cause. 

Yet  through  the  ages  of  the  combat  the  mistress,  be- 


46 


PATRIOTISM 


loved  as  with  human  affection,  of  whom  poets  sing,  for 
whom  heroes  die,  is  still  unseen  and  her  voice  unheard. 
But  in  some  happy  hour  of  bivouac  the  musing  soldier 
hears  the  hum  of  cities  and  inland  mills,  sees  golden 
harvests  waving  out  of  sight,  sees  men  and  women 
walking  and  working,  parents  and  children  of  freemen, 
and  bending  over  all  the  benediction  of  the  summer 
sky ;  and  the  musing  soldier  of  that  great  army  in  the 
harvest  and  the  murmur  knows  that  he  sees  and  hears, 
as  they  can  only  be  seen  and  heard,  the  face  and  the 
voice  of  the  mistress  he  loves  and  worships. 

If  such  is  Patriotism  in  general,  what  is  it  in  particu¬ 
lar?  How  can  you,  as  educated  young  Americans,  best 
serve  the  great  cause  of  human  development  to  which 
all  nationalities  are  subservient  ? 

In  the  life  of  Columbus  we  read  that,  after  being 
many  weeks  at  sea,  the  great  navigator  was  at  open  de¬ 
fiance  with  his  crew  ;  but  one  day,  after  the  vesper  hymn 
to  the  Virgin  had  been  sung,  Columbus  pointed  out  to 
his  crew  the  goodness  of  God  in  wafting  them  over  a 
tranquil  ocean  and  holding  out  to  them  promise  of  land. 
“  As  the  evening  darkened,”  says  the  charming  chron¬ 
icler,  who,  himself  the  patriarch  of  American  literature, 
has  written  with  touching  fidelity  the  lives  of  the  two 
most  famous  men  associated  with  the  history  of  Amer¬ 
ica — Columbus,  who  discovered  the  theatre  of  the  histor¬ 
ical  experiment,  and  Washington,  who  secured  its  honest 
trial,  and  has  thereby  linked  to  those  great  names  an¬ 
other  which  I  do  not  need  to  mention,  for  your  hearts 
go  before  my  lips  to  name  Washington  Irving — “  as  the 
evening  darkened,  Columbus  took  his  station  on  the  top 


PATRIOTISM 


47 


of  the  castle  or  cabin,  on  the  high  poop  of  his  vessel, 
urging  his  eye  along  the  dusky  horizon,  and  maintaining 
an  intense  and  unremitting  watch.  About  ten  o’clock 
he  thought  he  beheld  a  light  glimmering  at  a  great  dis¬ 
tance.  Fearing  his  eager  hopes  might  deceive  him,  he 
called  to  Pedro  Gutierez,  gentleman  of  the  king’s  bed¬ 
chamber,  and  inquired  whether  he  saw  such  a  light. 
The  latter  replied  in  the  affirmative.  Doubtful  wheth¬ 
er  it  might  not  yet  be  some  delusion  of  the  fancy,  Co¬ 
lumbus  called  Rodrigo  Sanchez,  of  Segovia,  and  made 
the  same  inquiry.  By  the  time  the  latter  had  ascended 
the  round-house  the  light  had  disappeared.  They  saw 
it  once  or  twice  afterwards,  in  sudden  and  passing 
gleams,  as  if  it  were  a  torch  in  the  bark  of  a  fisherman 
rising  and  sinking  in  the  waves,  or  in  the  hand  of  some 
person  on  shore,  borne  up  and  down  as  he  walked  from 
house  to  house.  So  transient  and  uncertain  were  these 
gleams  that  few  attached  any  importance  to  them.  Co¬ 
lumbus,  however,  considered  them  as  certain  signs  of 
land,  and,  moreover,  that  the  land  was  inhabited.” 

So,  out  of  dancing  waves,  trembling  and  uncertain, 
rose  the  natal  star  of  our  continent ;  so,  as  in  the  old 
Greek  fable  of  Venus  love  and  beauty  arose  from  puri¬ 
ty,  emerged  a  new  world  into  history ;  so,  as  that  world 
was  destined  to  light  the  wandering  nations  to  liberty, 
it  first  appeared  as  a  harbinger  of  hope  to  weary  mari¬ 
ners —  a  light  upon  the  shore,  a  ray  in  the  darkness. 
May  I  not  say  without  irreverence  that,  since  the  Shep¬ 
herds  followed  the  heavenly  beacon  to  the  manger 
where  the  Infant  lay,  no  star  so  sacred  has  risen  in  the 
sky  as  the  glimmering  light  that  showed  Columbus  he 


48  PATRIOTISM 

had  reached  the  continent  in  which  the  future  of  the 
world  reposed. 

The  collected  civilization  of  the  world  before  the  fif¬ 
teenth  century  was  but  a  various  development  of  the 
principle  of  absolutism  in  human  affairs.  The  State 
was  the  corollary  of  the  Church.  The  new  continent 
seems  to  have  been  reserved  by  Providence  in  virgin 
seclusion  for  the  development  of  the  other  great  prin¬ 
ciple  of  freedom,  or  human  liberty.  Mankind  had  be¬ 
gun  to  outgrow  the  idea  of  political  and  religious  sla¬ 
very,  and  a  revolution  was  preparing  as  deep  as  the 
human  soul  and  as  dear  as  its  interests. 

A  century  before  the  discovery  of  America  Wickliffe 
had  declared  that  a  bad  man  could  not  be  a  good  spir¬ 
itual  guide  merely  because  he  was  a  priest ;  and,  that 
bad  men  might  not  be  the  sole  interpreters  of  the  good 
book,  he  translated  the  Bible  into  the  language  of  the 
common  people  ;  and  so  seemingly  ripe  were  the  peo¬ 
ple  that  it  was  said  you  could  not  meet  two  men  talk¬ 
ing  in  the  street  but  one  was  a  Wickliffite.  Half  a 
century  after  Wickliffe  came  the  invention  of  printing 
which  was  to  make  his  translation  accessible  to  the  peo¬ 
ple  ;  and  nearly  half  a  century  later  Columbus  discov¬ 
ered  America,  and  Martin  Luther  was  nine  years  old. 

But  the  new  continent  was  not  to  become  at  once 
the  theatre  of  the  new  principle.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  curious  to  observe  that  Columbus  sailed  only  for  a 
shorter  way  to  the  Indies,  and  hoped,  perhaps,  that  the 
light  he  saw  flickering  across  the  waves  might  prove, 
at  morning,  to  have  shone  from  some  stately  palace  of 
Cathay.  In  the  spirit  of  his  voyage  came  those  who 


PATRIOTISM 


49 


followed  him.  The  enterprise  had  been  aimed  at  India 
or  El  Dorado  for  the  sake  of  gold,  and  the  Spaniards 
who  benefited  by  the  discovery  sought  only  the  same 
object. 

It  is  curious,  also,  that  the  part  of  the  continent  first 
touched  was  the  most  tropical  and  luxuriant,  requiring 
the  least  labor  to  cultivate,  and  hiding  the  most  pre¬ 
cious  metals.  Allured  by  the  charm  of  climate  and  the 
promise  of  wealth,  swarms  of  adventurers  crossed  the 
sea.  The  lust  of  gold  never  begot  so  sickening  a  spec¬ 
tacle  as  that  of  the  American  Indies  in  those  earlier 
days.  Outraging  all  divine  and  human  laws,  the  life  of 
those  adventurers  was  an  orgy,  a  fierce  debauch. 

The  Bishop  Las  Casas,  shocked  by  the  crimes  against 
the  inoffensive  Indians,  and  stupefied  with  the  sophistry 
of  a  Church  which  has  always  had  that  half  of  the 
apostolic  character  which  consists  in  the  wisdom  of  the 
serpent,  advised  the  enslaving  of  negroes,  who  were  a 
stronger  race,  and  might  by  compulsory  slavery  be  won 
to  the  service  of  a  God  who  is  love  and  liberty.  This 
was  the  culmination  of  the  crimes  against  humanity 
which  marked  the  early  settlements  in  America.  And 
it  is  dreadful  to  remember  that  the  curse  which  has 
blighted  millions  of  our  fellow-men  upon  this  continent, 
and  which  at  this  moment  seems  to  be  the  chief  serious 
obstacle  to  the  triumph  of  the  process  for  which  the 
continent  was  reserved,  can  be  traced  back  to  the  sug¬ 
gestion  of  one  man,  and  he  a  Christian  bishop. 

But  let  us  never  forget,  in  extenuation  of  this  enor¬ 
mous  crime,  that  Las  Casas  was  a  Spanish  Roman 
Catholic,  living  more  than  three  centuries  ago,  in  the 
I. — 4 


5° 


PATRIOTISM 


midst  of  the  horrors  of  the  early  West  Indian  struggle 
for  gold;  and  that  he  lived  to  deplore  bitterly  the 
course  he  had  advised,  having  learned,  as  three  cen¬ 
turies  have  continued  to  learn,  that  to  do  a  great  and 
evident  wrong  for  the  sake  of  a  possible  good  is  only 
to  make  sure  of  committing  the  sin  and  to  leave  the 
good  worse  than  undone.  And  I  am  sure  no  candid 
young  mind  can  hear  without  incredulity  and  shame 
that  the  repented  error  of  Las  Casas  three  hundred 
years  ago  is  the  last  desperate  defence  of  a  system  in 
the  land  where  he  planted  it  which  the  holy  indigna¬ 
tion  of  humanity  is  slowly,  but  surely,  withering.  If 
we  grant  with  reverence  that  God  brings  good  out  of 
evil,  shall  we  therefore,  with  Jesuitical  sophistry,  con¬ 
sent  to  do  the  evil  ? 

It  seemed,  certainly,  at  the  beginning  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century,  as  if  the  discovery  of  the  new  continent 
had  only  made  the  world  richer  to  make  it  worse.  The 
new  settlements  merely  repeated  in  more  hideous  forms 
the  vices  of  the  old  European  civilization.  But  the 
kind  climate,  the  quick  soil,  and  the  rare  metals,  by  at¬ 
tracting  adventurers,  had  done  their  work.  The  lost 
Atlantis  had  been  found  again.  Sebastian  Cabot,  Ca¬ 
bral,  Cortereal,  Verrazzani,  Cartier,  in  many  latitudes, 
under  every  auspice,  had  touched  the  remote  and  fabu¬ 
lous  shores.  Among  the  sunset  clouds  a  new  continent 
lay  fallow  for  the  future — waiting  to  be  possessed  and 
inhabited  by  any  people  who  had  sufficient  cause  and 
heart  and  hope  enough  to  subdue  it. 

The  movement  for  whose  ultimate  purposes  the 
scene  was  thus  preparing  still  went  on  in  Europe. 


PATRIOTISM 


51 


Wickliffe  had  translated  the  Bible  into  English.  Lu¬ 
ther  translated  the  New  Testament  into  German,  and 
while  Charles  V.  issued  a  rescript  against  “the  fool,” 
“the  blasphemer,”  “the  fiend  in  human  form,”  Martin 
Luther  defied  popes,  emperors,  and  as  many  devils  as 
there  were  tiles  upon  the  house-tops,  and  with  the 
pope’s  bull  of  excommunication  he  kindled  the  im¬ 
mortal  fire  that  was  to  blaze  brighter  as  it  crossed  the 
sea ;  and  the  little  wavering  flame  of  human  liberty 
which  he  kindled  in  Wurtemberg  was  to  burst  like  day 
on  the  new  land,  and  blaze  there,  ever  higher  and 
higher,  until  it  became  the  light  of  the  world. 

The  reckless  cavaliers  of  Spain  landed  in  the  tropics 
for  a  life  of  luxury,  and  they  made  no  permanent  im¬ 
pression  upon  this  continent  except  of  sorrow  and  mis¬ 
ery.  The  controlling  settlement  of  the  country  was 
delayed  —  until  the  sad,  severe  children  of  Luther’s 
spirit,  for  whom  in  the  divine  order  this  land  was  kept, 
came  praying  across  a  wintry  sea  and  landed  on  its 
gloomiest  shore. 

From  the  love  of  liberty,  and  from  what  is  rarer, 
the  ability  of  organizing  liberty  in  institutions,  sprang 
the  America  of  which  we  are  so  fondly  proud.  Our 
popular  or  democratic  idea  has  this  profound  difference 
from  the  same  thought  as  it  appeared  in  Greece  or  the 
republics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  that  it  is  associated  with 
the  religious  instinct ;  so  that  our  political  has  always 
rested  upon  our  religious  liberty.  American  civiliza¬ 
tion,  in  its  idea,  is,  historically,  the  political  aspect  of  the 
Reformation.  America  is  a  permanent  protest  against 
the  principle  of  absolutism  ;  it  opposes  freedom  to  feu- 


52 


PATRIOTISM 


dalism,  liberty  to  slavery.  Democracy  is  the  declara¬ 
tion  of  a  brotherhood  of  rights,  and,  therefore,  with 
a  sublime  propriety,  forecasting  its  destined  liberty,  the 
first  articulate  words  of  America  were,  “  All  men  are 
born  free  and  equal” — the  echo  in  the  mouths  of  legis¬ 
lators  and  the  hearts  of  a  people  of  the  song  the  Syrian 
shepherds  heard  from  celestial  singers,  “  Peace  on  earth, 
good  will  to  men.” 

Now,  as  I  conceive  it,  gentlemen,  patriotism  in  an 
American  is  simply  fidelity  to  the  American  idea.  Our 
government  was  established  confessedly  in  obedience  to 
this  sentiment  of  human  liberty.  And  your  duty  as 
patriots  is  to  understand  clearly  that  by  all  its  ante¬ 
cedents  your  country  is  consecrated  to  the  cause  of 
freedom ;  that  it  was  discovered  when  the  great  princi¬ 
ple  of  human  liberty  was  about  to  be  organized  in  insti¬ 
tutions  ;  that  it  was  settled  by  men  who  were  exiled  by 
reason  of  their  loyalty  to  that  principle ;  that  it  sepa¬ 
rated  politically  from  its  mother  country  because  that 
principle  had  been  assailed ;  that  it  began  its  peculiar 
existence  by  formally  declaring  its  faith  in  human  free¬ 
dom  and  equality ;  and,  therefore,  that  whatever  in  its 
government  or  policy  tends  to  limit  or  destroy  that  free¬ 
dom  and  equality  is  anti-American  and  unpatriotic,  be¬ 
cause  America  and  liberty  are  inseparable  ideas. 

Doubtless  in  every  civilized  and  intelligent  society 
there  is  no  need  of  saying  that  the  public  laws  must  be 
obeyed.  But  the  rule  is  subject  to  a  very  grave  excep¬ 
tion.  The  name  of  law  has  always  been  the  glove 
muffled  in  which  the  hand  of  Tyranny  has  taken  Lib¬ 
erty  by  the  throat. 


PATRIOTISM 


53 


You  have  no  right  to  sophisticate  your  minds.  You 
are  not  to  suppose  that  a  law  is,  under  all  circum¬ 
stances,  to  be  obeyed :  you  would  be  poor  children  of 
seven  years’  armed  disobedience  to  laws  if  you  be¬ 
lieved  that.  A  civilized  and  intelligent  society  obeys 
the  laws.  When  the  law  begins  to  grind,  that  commu¬ 
nity  changes  it  if  it  makes  its  own  laws,  or  protests  if 
it  does  not.  If  protest  is  of  no  avail  and  the  law  still 
grinds,  the  community  changes  the  law-makers  at  what¬ 
ever  cost  of  time  and  money  and  blood. 

You  have  heard  it  a  thousand  times ;  it  is  a  Fourth-of- 
July  oration.  But  we  must  go  one  step  further,  to  the 
issue  upon  which,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  whole  future 
of  the  race  depends.  In  the  world  upon  which  you  are 
entering  you  will  be  told  that,  with  us,  all  excuse  for 
disobedience  is  removed  because  we  can  so  easily  and 
often  change  the  laws ;  that  if  Charles  I.  had  really 
summoned  the  whole  people  of  England  to  a  parlia¬ 
ment,  and  had  executed  their  will,  Cromwell  and  Hamp¬ 
den  would  have  had  no  reason ;  that  if  the  American 
colonies  had  been  fairly  represented,  Washington  would 
have  been  a  mere  rebel. 

But,  gentlemen,  amid  the  jargon  of  corrupt  politics, 
and  the  shivering  sophistries  of  timidity  and  indiffer¬ 
ence  and  ease  which  blow  upon  every  generation  of 
young  hearts,  as  the  suffocating  scirocco  blows  over 
springing  grain,  remember  steadily  that  laws  are  of 
two  kinds — those  which  concern  us  as  citizens,  and 
those  which  affect  us  as  men.  We  are  born  men,  with 
certain  indefeasible  moral  duties — whether  our  birth 
chance  in  China  or  New  England — and  we  are  born 


54 


PATRIOTISM 


citizens,  with  certain  obligations  to  the  law.  If,  there¬ 
fore,  the  law  of  the  land,  enacted  by  a  majority  of  the 
people,  declare  that  you  must  pay  a  heavy  tax,  that  a 
railroad  may  pierce  your  garden,  that  a  duty  may  be 
levied  upon  the  goods  you  import,  however  injurious 
to  you  the  effect  may  be  you  can  have  no  right  to  re¬ 
sist  forcibly,  because  the  consequences  of  forcible  re¬ 
sistance  would  be  universal  confusion  and  injury,  and 
because,  if  it  be  found  to  be  a  grievance  by  the  ma¬ 
jority,  they  will  presently  put  it  right,  and  meanwhile 
your  pecuniary  loss  is  your  share  of  the  compromise  for 
the  general  security.  These  are  laws  that  concern  us 
only  as  citizens  in  our  relations  to  the  State.  In  them¬ 
selves  they  have  no  moral  character  or  importance. 

But  if  the  law  of  the  land,  enacted  by  the  majority, 
declares  that  you  must  murder  your  child  under  two 
years  of  age,  or  prostitute  your  daughter,  or  deny  a 
cup  of  water  to  the  thirsty,  or  return  to  savage  Indians 
an  innocent  captive  flying  for  his  life  whom  they  had 
stolen  from  his  country  and  enslaved  for  their  own 
gain,  under  the  name  of  civilizing  him,  you  have  no 
right  to  obey,  because  such  laws  nullify  themselves,  be¬ 
ing  repulsive  to  the  holiest  human  instincts,  and  obedi¬ 
ence  would  produce  a  more  disastrous  public  demorali¬ 
zation  than  any  possible  revolution  could  breed.  “To 
authorize  an  untruth  by  a  toleration  of  State,”  said  the 
Cobbler  of  Agawam,  one  of  the  stern  old  Puritans,  two 
hundred  and  seventeen  years  ago,  “  is  to  build  a  sconce 
against  the  walls  of  heaven,  to  batter  God  out  of  his 
chair.”  Such  laws  God  and  man  require  of  you  to 
disobey,  for  upon  a  people  who,  under  any  pretence, 


PATRIOTISM  55 

could  yield  to  them  there  is  no  tyranny  so  terrible  that 
it  might  not  be  imposed. 

Will  you  obey,  under  the  plea  that  it  is  law,  and 
that  you  have  no  right  to  judge  the  law,  but  must  try 
to  alter  it  by  and  by?  By  and  by?  But  God  is  God 
to-day !  and  to-day  a  child  is  born  to  you — he  is  under 
two  years  old ;  to-day  the  thirsty  wretch  falls  parched 
and  panting  at  your  feet ;  to-day  the  captive  from  those 
Indians  red  as  murder  crouches  on  your  hearth-stone ; 
and  the  law  is  knocking  at  your  door — “  Give  me  that 
child,  give  me  that  thirsty  wretch,  give  me  that  fright¬ 
ened  fugitive;  I  am  the  law!”  Yes,  and  God  is  knock¬ 
ing  at  your  heart,  “Whosoever  doeth  it  unto  the  least 
of  these  my  brethren,  doeth  it  unto  me”  ! 

If  we  believe  that  our  country  embodies  any  princi¬ 
ple,  that  it  is  peopled  for  another  purpose  than  the  early 
Spaniards  peopled  it,  and  that  as  moral  agents  and  self- 
respecting  men  we  have  something  to  do  in  America 
besides  turning  the  air  and  water  and  earth  into  wealth, 
we  shall  need  to  cling  to  no  principle  so  strongly  as  this, 
that  no  possible  law  can  bind  us  to  do  a  moral  wrong. 
All  other  inconveniences  and  disadvantages  we  may  suf¬ 
fer  for  the  sake  of  law,  seeing  how  soon  the  injury  may 
be  repaired,  but  there  is  no  reparation  of  moral  injury. 
What  excuse  is  it  for  my  lying  and  thieving  and  mur¬ 
dering,  for  my  trampling  upon  conscience,  which  is  God 
in  me,  that  the  law  ordered  it  ? 

I  should  be  sorry  to  seem  unmindful  of  the  scope  of 
what  I  say.  I  do  not  think  I  am.  I  think,  and  you 
think  with  me,  that  if  there  were  ever  a  doubt  of  the 
happy  duration  of  this  government,  it  is  in  the  days 


56 


PATRIOTISM 


that  are  passing,  and  because  there  is  now  a  deadly 
debate  in  our  minds  whether  men  may  not  do  wrong 
for  the  sake  of  some  apparent  advantage. 

Will  you  ask  where  we  should  be  if  every  citizen  is  to 
decide  for  himself  whether  he  is  to  obey  the  law  ?  On 
the  other  hand,  I  ask  you  where  we  shall  be  if  he  is 
not?  If  he  consent  to  act  against  his  moral  judgment 
for  a  year,  for  two  years,  for  six  months,  for  a  week,  do 
you  not  see  that  his  entire  moral  nature  is  corrupted ; 
that  such  a  man  upon  the  very  same  ground  would  deny 
his  father,  would  sell  his  sister,  if  the  law  required ;  and 
that  to  believe  the  interests  of  mankind  committed  to  a 
nation  of  such  men  is  to  accuse  not  only  the  goodness 
but  the  wisdom  of  God? 

Besides,  whenever  in  a  country  like  ours  a  law  which 
violates  the  moral  sense  chances  to  exist,  it  is  the  will 
of  the  majority,  and  they  will  punish  the  disobedient. 
To  that  punishment  the  offender  will  willingly  submit, 
and  thereby  show  homage  to  the  principles  of  law.  But 
when  good  men  are  sent  to  jail  for  refusing  to  do 
wrong,  if  there  be  any  public  conscience  there  will  soon 
be  a  change.  James  II.  sent  the  bishops  to  the  Tower; 
but  to  put  them  in  the  Tower  was  not  to  put  them  in 
the  wrong,  and  after  a  little  while  the  people  of  Eng¬ 
land  drove  James  II.  across  the  sea. 

Nor  need  you  fear  that  men  will  plead  their  con¬ 
science  falsely  to  avoid  obedience  to  the  law.  Because 
the  penalty  is  always  proportioned  and  always  exacted, 
and  if  a  man  says,  to  escape  payment  of  a  tax,  that  his 
moral  sense  will  not  allow  him  to  pay,  his  tax  will  be 
doubled  or  trebled  in  the  shape  of  penalty. 


PATRIOTISM 


57 


Remember  that  the  greatness  of  our  country  is  not  in 
the  greatness  of  its  achievement,  but  in  its  promise — a 
promise  that  cannot  be  fulfilled  without  that  sovereign 
moral  sense,  without  a  sensitive  national  conscience. 
If  it  were  a  question  of  the  mere  daily  pleasure  of  liv¬ 
ing,  the  gratification  of  taste,  opportunity  of  access  to 
the  great  intellectual  and  aesthetic  results  of  human 
genius  and  whatever  embellishes  human  life,  no  man 
could  hesitate  a  moment  between  the  fulness  of  foreign 
lands  in  these  respects  and  the  conspicuous  poverty  of 
our  own.  What  have  we  done?  We  have  subdued  and 
settled  a  vast  domain.  We  have  made  every  inland 
river  turn  a  mill,  and  wherever  on  the  dim  rim  of  the 
globe  there  is  a  harbor,  we  have  lighted  it  with  an 
American  sail.  We  have  bound  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Mississippi,  so  that  we  drift  from  the  sea  to  the  prairies 
upon  a  cloud  of  vapor ;  and  we  are  stretching  one  hand 
across  the  continent  to  fulfil  the  hope  of  Columbus  in 
a  shorter  way  to  Cathay,  and  with  the  other  we  are 
groping  under  the  sea  to  clasp  there  the  hand  of  the 
old  continent,  that  so  the  throbbing  of  the  ocean  may 
not  toss  us  farther  apart,  but  be  as  the  beating  of  one 
common  pulse  of  the  world. 

Yet  these  are  results  common  to  all  national  enter¬ 
prise,  and  different  with  us  only  in  degree,  not  in  kind. 
These  are  but  the  tools  with  which  to  shape  a  destiny. 
Commercial  prosperity  is  only  a  curse  if  it  be  not  sub¬ 
servient  to  moral  and  intellectual  progress,  and  our 
prosperity  will  conquer  us  if  we  do  not  conquer  our 
prosperity. 

Our  commercial  success  tends  to  make  us  all  cowards ; 


58 


PATRIOTISM 


but  we  have  got  to  make  up  our  minds  in  this  country 
whether  we  believe  in  the  goodness  and  power  of  God 
as  sincerely  as  we  undoubtedly  do  in  the  dexterity  of 
the  Devil,  that  we  may  shape  our  national  life  accord¬ 
ingly  and  not  be  praying  now  to  good  God,  now  to 
good  Devil,  and  wondering  which  is  going  to  carry  us 
off  after  all. 

The  whole  of  Patriotism  for  us  seems  to  consist  at 
the  present  moment  in  the  maintenance  of  this  pub¬ 
lic  moral  tone.  No  voice  of  self-glorification,  no  com¬ 
placent  congratulation  that  we  are  the  greatest,  wisest, 
and  best  of  nations,  will  help  our  greatness  or  our  good¬ 
ness  in  the  smallest  degree.  History  and  mankind  do 
not  take  men  or  nations  at  their  own  valuation,  and  a 
man  no  longer  secures  instant  respect  and  sympathy  by 
announcing  himself  an  American.  Are  we  satisfied  that 
America  should  have  no  other  excuse  for  independent 
national  existence  than  a  superior  facility  of  money¬ 
making?  Shall  it  have  no  national  justification  to  the 
intellect  and  the  heart?  Does  the  production  of  twelve 
hundred  million  pounds  of  cotton  fulfil  the  destiny  of 
this  continent  in  the  order  of  providence  ?  Why,  if  we 
are  unfaithful  as  a  nation,  though  our  population  were 
to  double  in  a  year,  and  the  roar  and  rush  of  our  vast 
machinery  were  to  silence  the  music  of  the  spheres,  and 
our  wealth  were  enough  to  buy  all  the  world,  our  popu¬ 
lation  could  not  bully  history,  nor  all  our  riches  bribe 
the  eternal  Justice  not  to  write  upon  us,  as  with  fiery 
finger  the  autumn  is  beginning  even  now  to  write  upon 
the  woods  and  fields,  “  Ichabod  !  Ichabod  !  the  glory  is 
departed !” 


PATRIOTISM 


59 


But  I  am  not  here  to  counsel  you  to  despair  and 
head-shakings.  I  am  here  to  say  that  this  country 
which  you  are  to  inherit,  and  for  which  you  are  to  be 
responsible,  needs  only  an  enlightened  patriotism  to  ful¬ 
fil  all  its  mission  and  justify  the  dreams  of  its  youth. 
I  do  not  believe  that  our  young  energy  is  capable  of 
nothing  more  than  money-making  at  any  cost,  at  any 
wear  and  tear  of  the  moral  sense.  I  do  not  believe 
the  continent,  veiled  and  virgin  through  all  the  de¬ 
baucheries  of  early  history,  was  unveiled  only  to  be 
wedded  to  the  same  spirit  grown  rank  and  old.  I  do 
not  believe  that  the  purpose  of  God  in  the  progress  of 
the  race  to  self-respecting  and  consistent  liberty  and 
law  is  to  be  thwarted  by  moral  cowardice.  But  I  be¬ 
lieve,  rather,  that  there  is  a  moral  sentiment  in  the 
country  which  will  make  the  glooms  of  its  morning  the 
glory  of  its  prime,  and  which  honors  the  name  Ameri¬ 
can  so  much  that  it  would  willingly  die  rather  than  see 
it  desecrated. 

Surrounded  by  unequalled  opportunities,  let  us  use 
them  as  God  inspires.  Be  faithful,  be  brave,  be  bold  ; 
neither  deluded  by  the  hope  of  easy  success  nor  dis¬ 
heartened  by  the  long  delay.  We  shall  die,  and  our 
children’s  children,  and  yet  the  end  not  be.  But  be 
cheered  by  the  great  aim  and  by  the  great  spirit  in 
which  you  serve  it.  Live  to  justify  your  own  hope 
and  the  vision  of  all  noble  minds. 


Ill 

THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY 

QUESTION 

A  LECTURE  DELIVERED  AT  PLYMOUTH  CHURCH,  BROOKLYN, 

N.  Y.,  OCTOBER  l8,  1859. 


The  advance  of  the  proslavery  party  was  steady  from  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  Mr.  Buchanan’s  administration,  and  its  claims  were 
never  more  aggressively  asserted  than  during  the  year  1859. 

The  repeal  of  all  laws,  State  or  Federal,  prohibiting  the  African 
slave-trade  was  proposed,  and  the  proposal  had  wide  support  in 
the  Southern  States.  Without  waiting  for  their  repeal  the  laws 
were  already  violated  by  slave-traders,  and  cargoes  of  negroes 
direct  from  Africa  were  secretly  landed  at  various  points  on  the 
Southern  coast,  and  the  negroes  were  sold. 

The  Fugitive-slave  Law  was  enforced  vigorously  in  Ohio  and 
other  States. 

The  Federal  government  was  practically  in  the  hands  of  the 
advocates  of  slavery,  and  the  South  was  united  in  its  determina¬ 
tion  to  maintain  and  extend  the  slave-power. 

The  North  was  divided  in  sentiment  and  uncertain  in  policy. 
Its  conscience  was  enfeebled  and  debauched. 

In  October  the  whole  country  was  startled  by  John  Brown’s 
raid.  Passion  ruled  the  hour  at  the  South,  and  the  character  of 
John  Brown’s  attempt  to  raise  a  revolt  among  the  slaves  was 
such  that,  while  there  was  throughout  the  North  a  strong  and 
just  sympathy  for  the  man  himself,  there  was  little  approval  of 
his  methods  and  design. 

It  was  on  the  very  day  on  which  John  Brown  was  taken  pris¬ 
oner  that  Mr.  Curtis  delivered  the  following  address  at  Plymouth 
Church  in  Brooklyn. 

On  the  nth  of  December  he  repeated  it  at  the  Music  Hall  in 
Boston.  John  Brown  had  been  hanged  on  the  2d  of  the  month. 

The  feelings  of  men  everywhere  were  excited,  their  temper 
was  irritable ;  the  slavery  question  had  taken  on  a  new  aspect, 
the  debate  was  carried  on  in  a  sharper  tone. 

Mr.  Curtis  was  to  repeat  this  address  in  Philadelphia  on  the 
15th  of  December.  The  Twenty-fourth  Annual  Fair  of  the  Phil¬ 
adelphia  Female  Antislavery  Society  opened  on  Monday  the 
1 2th.  The  sympathies  of  a  large  part  of  the  citizens  were  with 


the  South.  The  fair  was  regarded  by  them  as  an  offence.  Means 
were  found  by  which  on  the  morning  of  the  15th  a  writ  of  eject¬ 
ment  from  the  hall  in  which  the  fair  was  held  was  served  upon 
its  managers.  On  the  same  morning  a  call  signed  “  Many  Citi¬ 
zens  ”  appeared  in  one  of  the  principal  newspapers,  the  Pennsyl¬ 
vanian,  for  a  rally  of  “  Union  men  ”  that  evening  in  front  of  Na¬ 
tional  Hall,  where  Mr.  Curtis  was  to  deliver  his  address.  “  All 
who  are  determined,”  said  the  call,  “that  no  more  hireling  in¬ 
cendiaries  shall  be  permitted  to  make  their  inflammatory  ad¬ 
dresses  in  our  loyal  city  are  invited  to  attend.” 

The  mayor,  Mr.  Henry,  though  what  was  known  as  a  “  Union 
man,”  was  a  man  of  character  and  energy,  and  he  took  the  nec¬ 
essary  steps  to  maintain  the  right  of  free  speech  and  to  protect 
the  city  from  mob  violence. 

Mr.  Curtis,  attended  by  a  body-guard  of  faithful  friends,  ap¬ 
peared  at  the  hall  at  the  time  appointed.  The  hall  was  filled  by 
a  large  audience,  of  which  the  majority  were  with  the  speaker ; 
but  outside  was  a  great  mob  ready  for  violence,  but  held  in  check 
by  a  large  body  of  police.  Mr.  Curtis  delivered  his  address  in  the 
midst  of  interruption.  A  few  paving-stones  and  a  bottle  of  vit¬ 
riol  were  thrown  through  the  windows,  but  no  serious  injury  was 
inflicted. 

This  was  one  of  the  last  instances  in  which  the  attempt  was 
made  to  suppress  free  speech  in  the  free  States  in  the  interest  of 
slavery.  But  two  or  three  years  were  yet  to  pass  before  such  at¬ 
tempts  were  at  an  end. 

In  December,  i860,  Mr.  Curtis  was  engaged  to  give  a  non¬ 
political  lecture  before  the  People’s  Literary  Institute  in  Phila¬ 
delphia.  But  a  riot  was  anticipated  in  case  he  should  appear. 
The  mayor  advised  the  chairman  of  the  Literary  Institute  that 
Mr.  Curtis’s  appearance  would  be  “  extremely  unwise,”  and  that 
if  he  possessed  the  lawful  power  he  would  not  allow  it.  The 
owner  of  the  hall  engaged  for  the  lecture  refused  to  allow  the 
hall  to  be  used  for  the  purpose — and  Philadelphia  lost  the  dis¬ 
tinction  she  had  gained  in  the  preceding  year. 

“  It  seems  that  I  am  such  a  dangerous  fellow,”  wrote  Mr.  Cur¬ 
tis  a  few  weeks  afterwards,  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  “  that  no  hall 
owner  in  Philadelphia  will  risk  the  result  of  my  explosive  words, 
and  not  a  place  can  be  had  for  my  fanatical  and  incendiary  criti¬ 
cism  of  Thackeray.” 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY 

QUESTION 


There  are  certain  great  sentiments  which  simulta¬ 
neously  possess  many  minds  and  make  what  we  call 
the  spirit  of  the  age.  That  spirit  at  the  close  of  the 
last  century  was  peculiarly  humane.  From  the  great 
Spanish  Cardinal  Ximenes,  who  refused  the  proposal  of 
the  Bishop  Las  Casas  to  enslave  the  Indians ;  from  Mil- 
ton,  who  sang, 

“  But  man  over  man 
He  made  not  Lord ;  such  title  to  himself 
Reserving,  human  left  from  human  free  ” ; 

from  John  Selden,  who  said,  “Before  all,  Liberty”; 
from  Algernon  Sidney,  who  died  for  it ;  from  Morgan 
Godwyn,  a  clergyman  of  the  Established  Church,  and 
Richard  Baxter,  the  Dissenter,  with  his  great  contempo¬ 
rary,  George  Fox,  whose  protest  has  been  faithfully  main¬ 
tained  by  the  Quakers ;  from  Southern,  Montesquieu, 
'Hutcheson,  Savage,  Shenstone,  Sterne,  Warburton,  Vol¬ 
taire,  Rousseau,  down  to  Cowper  and  Clarkson  in  1783 
— by  the  mouths  of  all  these  and  innumerable  others 
Religion,  Scepticism,  Literature,  and  Wit  had  persist- 
1.-5 


66  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

ently  protested  against  the  sin  of  slavery.  As  early  as 
1705  Lord  Holt  had  declared  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  a  slave  by  the  law  of  England.  At  the  close  of  the 
century,  four  years  before  our  Declaration,  Lord  Mans¬ 
field,  though  yearning  to  please  the  planters,  was  yet 
compelled  to  utter  the  reluctant  “  Amen  ”  to  the  words 
of  his  predecessor.  Shall  we  believe  Lord  Mansfield, 
who  lived  in  the  time  and  spoke  for  it,  when  he  declared 
that  wherever  English  law  extended — and  it  extended 
to  these  colonies  —  there  was  no  man  whatsoever  so 
poor  and  outcast  but  had  rights  sacred  as  the  king’s ; 
or  shall  we  believe  a  judge  eighty-four  years  afterwards, 
who  says  that  at  that  time  Africans  were  regarded  as 
people  “  who  had  no  rights  which  the  white  man  was 
bound  to  respect”?  I  am  not  a  lawyer,  but,  for  the 
sake  of  the  liberty  of  my  countrymen,  I  trust  the  law 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  is  better 
than  its  knowledge  of  history. 

The  principle  of  our  Revolution,  as  defined  by  its 
leaders  with  sublime  simplicity,  was,  that  as  Liberty  is 
a  natural  right  of  man,  every  man  has  consequent  equal 
rights  in  society,  subject  indeed  to  limitation,  but  not 
to  annihilation. 

“  But,”  cries  Mr.  Douglas,  in  his  Memphis  speech  last 
November — I  quote  his  words — “  our  fathers  were  not 
talking  of  negroes,  nor  thinking  of  them  .  .  .  they  were 
speaking  of  white  men,  men  of  European  birth,  and 
they  said  they  were  equal,  that  is,  equal  to  their  breth¬ 
ren  across  the  water.”  Well,  it  would  have  been  per¬ 
fectly  easy  to  say,  “We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self- 
evident,  that  all  white  men  of  the  European  race  upon 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  67 

this  continent  are  created  equal  —  to  their  brethren 
across  the  water ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Cre¬ 
ator  with  certain  unalienable  rights ;  but  that  yellow, 
black,  brown,  and  red  men  have  no  such  rights.”  It 
would  have  been  very  easy  to  say  this.  Our  fathers  did 
not  say  it,  because  they  did  not  mean  it.  They  were 
men  who  meant  what  they  said,  and  who  said  what 
they  meant,  and  meaning  all  men,  they  said  all  men. 
They  were  patriots  asserting  a  principle  and  ready  to 
die  for  it,  not  politicians  pettifogging  for  the  Presidency. 

Mr.  Douglas  incessantly  remembers  to  inform  us  in 
every  speech  he  has  made  for  a  year  past  that,  when 
the  Constitution  was  formed,  all  the  thirteen  States  but 
one  recognized  slavery  by  law ;  but  he  incessantly  for¬ 
gets  to  add  that  Pennsylvania  in  1780  passed  an  act 
for  the  gradual  abolition  of  slavery  which  freed  every¬ 
body  born  in  the  State  after  its  passage ;  that  one  day 
later  Massachusetts  decided  that  her  Bill  of  Rights  abol¬ 
ished  slavery  forever;  that  in  1784  Connecticut  followed 
Pennsylvania,  and  Rhode  Island  at  about  the  same 
time;  that  in  1792,  soon  after  the  Constitution  was 
formed,  New  Hampshire,  under  her  Bill  of  Rights, 
Vermont,  by  express  assertion  in  her  Constitution,  New 
York  in  March,  1799,  and  New  Jersey  in  1804,  gradu¬ 
ally  abolished  slavery. 

That  is  to  say,  within  less  than  twenty  years  after  the 
Constitution  was  formed,  and  in  obedience  to  that  gen¬ 
eral  opinion  of  the  time  which  condemned  slavery  as  a 
sin  in  morals  and  a  blunder  in  economy,  eight  of  the 
States  had  abolished  it  by  law  —  four  of  them  having 
already  done  so  when  the  instrument  was  framed ;  and 


68  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

Mr.  Douglas  might  as  justly  quote  the  fact  that  there 
were  slaves  in  New  York  up  to  1827  as  proof  that  the 
public  opinion  of  the  State  sanctioned  slavery,  as  to  try 
to  make  an  argument  of  the  fact  that  there  were  slave 
laws  upon  the  statute-books  of  the  original  States.  He 
forgets  that  there  was  not  in  all  the  colonial  legislation 
of  America  one  single  law  which  recognized  the  right¬ 
fulness  of  slavery  in  the  abstract;  that  in  1774  Virginia 
stigmatized  the  slave-trade  as  “wicked,  cruel,  and  un¬ 
natural  ” ;  that  in  the  same  year  Congress  protested 
against  it  “  under  the  sacred  ties  of  virtue,  honor,  and 
love  of  country”;  that  in  1775  the  same  Congress  de¬ 
nied  that  God  intended  one  man  to  own  another  as  a 
slave ;  that  the  new  Discipline  of  the  Methodist  Church, 
in  1784,  and  the  Pastoral  Letter  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  in  1788,  denounced  slavery;  that  abolition  so¬ 
cieties  existed  in  slave  States,  and  that  it  was  hardly 
the  interest  even  of  the  cotton-growing  States,  where 
it  took  a  slave  a  day  to  clean  a  pound  of  cotton,  to  up¬ 
hold  the  system.  Mr.  Douglas  incessantly  forgets  to  tell 
us  that  Jefferson,  in  his  address  to  the  Virginia  Legis¬ 
lature  of  1774,  says  that  “the  abolition  of  domestic 
slavery  is  the  greatest  object  of  desire  in  these  colo¬ 
nies,  where  it  was  unhappily  introduced  in  their  infant 
state  ” ;  and  while  he  constantly  remembers  to  remind 
us  that  the  Jeffersonian  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  ter¬ 
ritories  was  lost  in  1784,  he  forgets  to  add  that  it  was 
lost,  not  by  a  majority  of  votes — for  there  were  sixteen 
in  its  favor  to  seven  against  it — but  because  the  sixteen 
votes  did  not  represent  two  thirds  of  the  States ;  and 
he  also  incessantly  forgets  to  tell  us  that  this  Jefferso- 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  69 

nian  prohibition  was  restored  by  the  Congress  of  1785, 
and  erected  into  the  famous  Northwest  Ordinance  of 
1787,  which  was  re-enacted  by  the  first  Congress  of  the 
United  States  and  approved  by  the  first  President. 

I  will  not  weary  you  with  the  proof  of  this.  James 
Madison,  who  knew  perhaps  as  well  as  any  one  what 
the  makers  of  the  Constitution  meant,  said,  “  We  intend 
this  Constitution  to  be  the  great  charter  of  Human  Lib¬ 
erty  to  the  unborn  millions  who  shall  enjoy  its  protec¬ 
tion,  and  who  should  never  see  that  such  an  institu¬ 
tion  as  slavery  was  ever  known  in  our  midst.”  And 
the  Congress  of  1787,  in  resigning  its  functions,  echoed 
the  meaning  of  his  words  in  saying,  “Let  it  never 
be  forgotten  that  the  cause  of  the  United  States  is 
the  cause  of  human  nature” — not  of  white  men  nor 
black  men  nor  red  men  nor  brown  men — but  of  man, 
of  mankind. 

Our  fathers,  therefore,  were  fully  alive  to  the  scope  of 
their  words  and  their  work ;  and  thus,  as  I  believe,  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  its  essential  spirit 
and  intention,  recognizes  the  essential  manhood  of  Dred 
Scott  as  absolutely  as  it  does  that  of  the  President, 
of  the  Chief  Justice,  or  of  any  Senator  of  the  United 
States. 

I  think  I  have  not  unfairly  stated  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  the  sentiments  of  the  fathers,  and  the  original  doc¬ 
trine  of  this  government  upon  the  question  of  slavery. 
The  system  was  recognized  by  law,  but  it  was  consid¬ 
ered  an  evil  which  Time  was  surely  removing. 

And,  as  if  to  put  this  question  at  rest  forever,  to 
show  that  the  framers  of  this  government  did  not  look 


70  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

forward  to  a  continuance  of  slavery,  Mr.  Stephens  of 
Georgia,  the  most  sagacious  of  the  living  slavery  lead¬ 
ers,  says,  in  June  of  this  year:  “  The  leading  public 
men  of  the  South,  in  our  early  history,  were  almost 
all  against  it.  Jefferson  was  against  it.  This  I  freely 
admit,  when  the  authority  of  their  names  is  cited.  It 
was  a  question  which  they  did  not,  and  perhaps  could 
not,  thoroughly  understand  at  that  time.” 

In  like  manner  the  Rev.  Dr.  William  A.  Smith,  Pres¬ 
ident  of  the  Randolph-Macon  College  in  Virginia,  in  his 
work  upon  the  “  Philosophy  and  Practice  of  Slavery,” 
deliberately  repudiates  Mr.  Jefferson’s  view  of  slavery 
as  a  “  grossly  offensive  error,”  and  attributes  the  anti¬ 
slavery  movement  to  him — which  is  as  wise  as  to  attrib¬ 
ute  the  motion  of  the  earth  to  Galileo. 

Judge  Wayne,  in  his  late  charge  at  Savannah  upon 
the  law  against  the  slave-trade,  confirms  Mr.  Stephens’s 
statement.  And,  as  if  to  establish  it  by  the  most  unex¬ 
pected  testimony,  Mr.  Edward  Everett,  in  his  late  dis¬ 
course  upon  Daniel  Webster,  said,  “  In  common  with 
all,  or  nearly  all,  the  statesmen  of  the  last  generation, 
he  believed  that  free  labor  would  ultimately  prevail 
throughout  the  continent.” 

If  there  be  any  fact  in  our  history  beyond  dispute  it 
is  that  Roger  Sherman  expressed  the  universal  senti¬ 
ment  of  our  fathers  when  he  said,  “  The  abolition  of 
slavery  seemed  to  be  going  on  in  the  United  States, 
and  the  good  sense  of  the  several  States  would  proba¬ 
bly  by  degrees  complete  it.”  In  that  spirit  the  com¬ 
promises  of  the  Constitution  were  made.  Had  not 
slavery  at  that  time  deprecated  itself  as  an  evil,  the 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  7 1 

Constitution  could  not  have  been  formed.  Could  the 
future  have  been  foreseen,  it  would  not  have  been 
formed.  But,  reasoning  from  the  light  they  had,  it 
was  fair  to  believe  as  they  believed,  that,  when  the 
slave-trade  was  prohibited,  the  system  would  wither 
away  under  the  double  curse  of  Morality  and  Law. 

Now,  so  far  as  we  may  ascribe  any  great  historic  re¬ 
sult  to  a  single  cause,  it  is  the  cotton-gin  which  has 
thwarted  the  Constitution  and  defeated  the  expecta¬ 
tion  of  our  fathers.  The  cotton-gin — which  in  seven 
years  saw  a  crop  twenty  times  as  large  as  before ;  the 
cotton-gin,  which  enabled  a  man  to  pick  a  thousand 
pounds  of  cotton  in  a  day  instead  of  one  pound — has 
seemed  also  to  pick  the  moral  perceptions  out  of  the 
minds  of  a  great  many  sober  and  kindly  people  ;  to  pick 
all  the  intention,  the  spirit,  the  humanity,  the  meaning, 
the  very  soul,  out  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  making  it  not  the  charter  of  equal  freedom  to  all 
who  are  subject  to  it,  but  a  mere  commercial  band  by 
which  a  part  of  the  population  are  compelled,  directly 
or  indirectly,  to  hold  another  part  in  slavery. 

From  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  slavery  became  a 
progressive  system — not  passively  tolerated  as  in  process 
of  extinction,  but  actively  striving  for  development  and 
extension.  It  became  a  conscious  political  power.  It 
made  no  offensive  professions.  It  still  deprecated  it¬ 
self  as  an  evil,  so  difficult  to  deal  with,  and,  with  an 
adroit  allusion  to  Ham  and  Onesimus,  it  smoothed  the 
ecclesiastical  conscience  of  the  country  and  only  asked 
to  be  let  alone.  And  it  was  let  alone.  The  War  of 
1812,  and  the  consequent  commercial  confusion  and  re- 


72  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

newed  devotion  to  trade,  held  the  country  torpid  upon 
the  subject.  If  anybody  looked  at  slavery  inquisitive¬ 
ly,  it  folded  its  hands  demurely  upon  its  breast  and 
said,  “I  am  such  a  dreadful  thing!  How  unfortunate 
that  I  should  exist!  What  can  be  done  with  me?  Just 
please  to  let  me  alone,  that  is  all  I  want.  A  leper,  you 
see;  a  miserable  leper!” 

And  so  it  went  until  the  alarm  was  struck  in  the  fa¬ 
mous  Missouri  debate.  Then  wise  men  remembered 
what  Washington  had  said,  “  Resist  with  care  the  spirit 
of  innovation  upon  the  principles  of  the  Constitution.” 
They  saw  that  the  letting  alone  was  all  on  one  side, 
that  the  unfortunate  anomaly  was  deeply  scheming  to 
become  the  rule,  and  they  roused  the  country.  The 
old  American  love  of  liberty  flamed  out  again.  Meet¬ 
ings  were  everywhere  held.  The  lips  of  young  orators 
burned  with  the  eloquence  of  freedom.  The  spirit  of 
John  Knox  and  of  Hugh  Peters  thundered  and  light¬ 
ened  in  the  pulpits,  and  men  were  not  called  political 
preachers  because  they  preached  that  we  are  all  equal 
children  of  God.  The  legislatures  of  the  free  States 
instructed  their  representatives  to  stand  fast  for  liberty. 
Daniel  Webster,  speaking  for  the  merchants  of  Boston, 
said  that  it  was  a  question  essentially  involving  the  per¬ 
petuity  of  the  blessings  of  liberty  for  which  the  Consti¬ 
tution  itself  was  formed.  Daniel  Webster,  speaking 
for  humanity  at  Plymouth,  described  the  future  of  the 
slave  as  “  a  widespread  prospect  of  suffering,  anguish, 
and  death.”  The  land  was  loud  with  the  debate,  and 
Rufus  King  stated  its  substance  in  saying  that  it  was 
a  question  of  slave  or  free  policy  in  the  national  gov- 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  73 


ernment.  Slavery  hissed  disunion ;  liberty  smiled  dis¬ 
dain.  The  moment  of  final  trial  came.  Pinckney  ex¬ 
ulted.  John  Quincy  Adams  shook  his  head.  Slavery 
triumphed  and,  with  Southern  chivalry,  politely  called 
victory  compromise. 

The  advantage  it  had  gained  it  has  steadily  main¬ 
tained.  “  This  is  our  matter,  you  know,”  it  said.  “Just 
please  let  us  alone.”  It  was  let  alone.  Texas  was 
ceded  for  Florida,  completing  the  sea-line  of  slavery ; 
and  when  slavery  was  ready  Texas  was  taken  back 
again,  as  when,  afterwards,  slavery  had  secured  its 
share  of  the  bargain,  the  Missouri  Compromise  was 
broken.  In  due  order  came  the  Mexican  war  and  its 
consequences,  the  Fugitive-slave  Bill  and  the  loud  chat¬ 
ter  about  saving  the  Union,  so  incessant  that  every 
thoughtful  man  asked  himself,  Is  the  casket  more  than 
the  gem — the  body  than  the  soul — the  Union  than  lib¬ 
erty?  Then  came  the  bloody  tragedy  of  Kansas,  with 
its  justification  by  the  President  of  the  United  States 
and  by  the  Chief  Justice;  and  I  think  no  one  will  deny 
that  Mr.  Stephens  is  correct  in  calmly  congratulating 
himself  that  slavery  has  carried  all  the  important  ob¬ 
jects  for  which  it  has  striven. 

For  what  do  we  now  see  in  the  country?  We  see  a 


man  who,  as  Senator  of  the  United  States,  voted  to 
tamper  with  the  public  mails  for  the  benefit  of  slavery, 
sitting  in  the  President’s  chair.  Two  days  after  he  is 
seated  we  see  a  judge  rising  in  the  place  of  John  Jay — 
who  said,  “  Slaves,  though  held  by  the  laws  of  men,  are 
free  by  the  laws  of  God  ” — to  declare  that  a  seventh  of 
the  population  not  only  have  no  original  rights  as  men, 


74  THE  present  aspect  of  the  slavery  question 

but  no  legal  rights  as  citizens.  We  see  every  great 
office  of  State  held  by  ministers  of  slavery ;  our  foreign 
ambassadors  not  the  representatives  of  our  distinctive 
principle,  but  the  eager  advocates  of  the  bitter  anomaly 
in  our  system,  so  that  the  world  sneers  as  it  listens  and 
laughs  at  liberty.  We  see  the  majority  of  every  impor¬ 
tant  committee  of  each  house  of  Congress  carefully  de¬ 
voted  to  slavery.  We  see  throughout  the  vast  ramifi¬ 
cation  of  the  Federal  system  every  little  postmaster  in 
every  little  town  professing  loyalty  to  slavery  or  sadly 
holding  his  tongue  as  the  price  of  his  salary,  which  is 
taxed  to  propagate  the  faith.  We  see  every  small  Cus¬ 
tom-House  officer  expected  to  carry  primary  meetings 
in  his  pocket  and  to  insult  at  Fourth-of-july  dinners 
men  who  quote  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  We 
see  the  slave-trade  in  fact,  though  not  yet  in  law,  reopen¬ 
ed — the  slave  -  law  of  Virginia  contesting  the  freedom 
of  the  soil  of  New  York  We  see  slave-holders  in  South 
Carolina  and  Louisiana  enacting  laws  to  imprison  and 
sell  the  free  citizens  of  other  States.  Yes,  and  on  the 
way  to  these  results,  at  once  symptoms  and  causes,  we 
have  seen  the  public  mails  robbed — the  right  of  petition 
denied; — the  appeal  to  the  public  conscience  made  by 
the  abolitionists  in  1833  and  onward  derided  and  de¬ 
nounced,  and  their  very  name  become  a  byword  and  a 
hissing.  We  have  seen  free  speech  in  public  and  in 
private  suppressed,  and  a  Senator  of  the  United  States 
struck  down  in  his  place  for  defending  liberty.  We 
have  heard  Mr.  Edward  Everett,  succeeding  brave  John 
Hancock  and  grand  old  Samuel  Adams  as  governor  of 
the  freest  State  in  history,  say  in  his  inaugural  address 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  75 

in  1836  that  all  discussion  of  the  subject  which  tends  to 
excite  insurrection  among  the  slaves  (as  if  all  discus¬ 
sion  of  it  would  not  be  so  construed)  “  has  been  held  by 
highly  respectable  legal  authorities  an  offence  against 
the  peace  of  the  commonwealth,  which  may  be  prose¬ 
cuted  as  a  misdemeanor  at  common  law.”  We  have 
heard  Daniel  Webster,  who  had  once  declared  that 
the  future  of  the  slave  was  “  a  widespread  prospect  of 
suffering,  anguish,  and  death,”  now  declaring  it  to  be  “an 
affair  of  high  morals”  to  drive  back  into  that  doom  any 
innocent  victim  appealing  to  God  and  man,  and  flying 
for  life  and  liberty.  We  have  heard  clergymen  in  their 
pulpits  preaching  implicit  obedience  to  the  powers  that 
be,  whether  they  are  of  God  or  the  Devil — insisting  that 
God’s  tribute  should  be  paid  to  Caesar,  and,  by  sneering 
at  the  scruples  of  the  private  conscience,  denouncing 
every  mother  of  Judea  who  saved  her  child  from  the 
sword  of  Herod’s  soldiers.  We  have  heard  popular  ora¬ 
tors  declaiming  to  audiences  to  whose  fathers  James 
Otis  and  Samuel  Adams  spoke,  and  whose  fathers’ 
cheeks  would  have  burned  with  shame  and  their  hearts 
tingled  with  indignation  to  hear,  that  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  the  passionate  manifesto  of  a 
revolutionary  war,  and  its  doctrine  of  equal  human 
rights  a  glittering  generality.  And  finally,  throwing  off 
the  mask  altogether,  but  still  whining  to  be  let  alone, 
we  see  this  system,  grown  now  from  seven  hundred 
thousand  to  four  millions  of  slaves,  declaring  that  it  is 
in  a  peculiar  sense  a  divine  and  Christian  institution ; 
that  it  is  right  in  itself  and  a  blessing,  not  a  bane ; 
that  it  is  ineradicable  in  the  soil ;  that  it  is  directly 


76  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

recognized  and  protected  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States;  that  its  rights  under  that  Constitution 
are  to  be  maintained  at  all  hazards ;  and  how  they  are 
maintained  we  may  see  in  the  slave  States,  by  the  ab¬ 
solute  annihilation  of  free  speech  and  by  codes  of  law 
insulting  to  humanity  and  common-sense ;  and  how  they 
are  to  be  maintained  in  the  new  States  we  have  seen  in 
the  story  of  Kansas.  It  declares  that,  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  being  a  slave  instrument  and  being 
also  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  the  rights  of  the  slave 
States  are  to  be  protected  from  injury  by  the  suppres¬ 
sion  in  the  free  States  of  what  shall  be  decided  by  the 
United  States  Courts  to  be  incendiary  discussion;  and 
at  last  it  openly  announces,  by  its  representative  leaders 
in  Congress,  that  if  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  shall  elect  a  government  holding  what 
they  allow  to  have  been  the  principles  of  the  founders 
of  the  government  upon  this  question,  they  will  hesitate 
at  no  steps  to  destroy  the  Union. 

So  vast  has  been  the  change  in  the  claim  and  posi¬ 
tion  of  slavery !  So  entirely  has  it  reversed  the  classic 
story,  and  the  blind,  begging  Belisarius  has  become  the 
imperial  general !  So  proudly,  in  such  long  and  daz¬ 
zling  and  magnificent  array,  stands  Xerxes  at  the  fiery 
pass  of  war !  And  where  is  Leonidas  ?  Where  is  liberty  ? 

Still,  slavery  professes  only  to  wish  its  rights.  It 
only  wants  to  be  let  alone.  Of  course  ;  what  else  could 
it  want?  And  what  else  is  the  secret  of  the  present 
state  of  the  country?  Under  the  plea  of  being  let 
alone — that  it  was  a  dreadful  thing  and  only  wanted  to 
mind  its  own  business — it  has  quietly  possessed  itself, 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  77 

one  after  another,  of  all  the  outworks  of  the  Constitution, 
and  now  seeks  to  intrench  itself  finally  in  the  citadel. 

It  was  no  further  from  the  compromises  of  1850  to 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  bill  in  1854,  than  it  was  from 
the  annexation  of  Texas  in  1845  t°  the  compromises. 
Slavery  had  no  reason  to  fear  that  it  could  not  take  one 
more  step,  and  one  more,  every  few  years.  If  freedom 
will  bear  a  pinch,  it  argued,  it  will  bear  a  blow.  If  a 
blow,  a  kick.  If  a  kick,  we’ll  throw  it  and  throttle  it. 
The  burglar  who  has  quietly  mounted  one  stair  does  not 
see  why  he  may  not  mount  the  next.  There  is  a  risk ; 
that  is  all.  The  master  of  the  house  sleeps  quietly  on. 
The  burglar  mounts  another  stair.  Still  the  sleeper 
sleeps.  Another.  There  is  no  motion  yet.  He  mounts 
another.  No  reason  for  alarm.  Hist!  the  last  stair 
creeks  ;  the  master  awakes — springs  to  his  feet — grasps 
his  weapon — aims — fires.  Do  you  think  he  will  sleep 
again?  I  don’t  believe  he  will. 

This  attempt  to  usurp  the  government  by  subverting 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  was  the  policy  of 
the  greatest  leader  the  system  of  slavery  has  ever  had 
in  this  country — that  pagan  of  our  politics,  Mr.  Cal¬ 
houn.  While  other  statesmen  merely  saw,  he  foresaw. 
H  is  mind,  of  large  forecast  and  comprehensive  grasp, 
perceived  that  the  logic  of  history,  of  civilization,  of  our 
national  idea,  of  the  universal  conscience,  was  against 
slavery.  But  he  had  seen  the  conscience  of  the  country, 
roused  for  a  moment  in  the  Missouri  debate,  drop 
asleep  again.  And  with  the  audacity  of  genius  he  re¬ 
solved  to  stun  the  country  into  acquiescence  by  claim¬ 
ing  that  slavery  was  the  fundamental  law  of  the  land. 


78  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

In  1850  Mr.  Calhoun  said,  “  Let  us  be  done  with  com¬ 
promises.  Let  us  go  back  and  stand  upon  the  Consti¬ 
tution.” 

Four  years  afterwards,  the  most  Christian  and  most 
democratic  statesman  we  have  had  in  our  history  since 
Washington,  Mr.  Seward,  accepted  the  challenge  thrown  - 
out  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  solemnly  saying,  “  The  sands  of  com¬ 
promise  are  sliding  from  beneath  my  feet,  and  they  are 
taking  hold  once  more  of  the  rock  of  the  Constitution.” 

The  debate  forced  upon  the  mind  of  the  country  this 
question :  Does  the  Constitution,  made  at  the  time  we 
know,  by  the  men  we  know,  holding  the  views  we  know, 
for  the  distinct  intention  it  declares,  stultify  itself  by 
securing  the  destruction  of  its  expressed  purposes? 

The  slavery  debate  has  been  really  a  death-struggle 
from  that  moment.  Mr.  Clay  thought  not.  Mr.  Clay 
was  a  shrewd  politician,  but  the  difference  between 
him  and  Calhoun  was  the  difference  between  principle 
and  expediency.  Calhoun’s  sharp,  incisive  genius  has 
engraved  his  name,  narrow  but  deep,  upon  our  annals. 
The  fluent  and  facile  talents  of  Clay  in  a  bold,  large 
hand  wrote  his  name  in  honey  upon  many  pages.  But 
time  is  already  licking  it  away.  Henry  Clay  was  our 
great  compromiser.  That  was  known,  and  that  was 
the  reason  why  Mr.  Buchanan’s  story  of  a  bargain  with 
J.  Q.  Adams  always  clung  to  Mr.  Clay.  He  had  com¬ 
promised  political  policies  so  long  that  he  had  forgotten 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  political  principle,  which  is  sim¬ 
ply  a  name  for  the  moral  instincts  applied  to  govern¬ 
ment.  He  did  not  see  that  when  Mr.  Calhoun  said  he 
should  return  to  the  Constitution  he  took  the  question 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  79 

with  him,  and  shifted  the  battle-ground  from  the  low, 
poisonous  marsh  of  compromise,  where  the  soldiers 
never  know  whether  they  are  standing  on  land  or  water, 
to  the  clear,  hard  height  of  principle.  Mr.  Clay  had  his 
omnibus  at  the  door  to  roll  us  out  of  the  mire.  The 
Whig  party  was  all  right  and  ready  to  jump  in.  The 
Democratic  party  was  all  right.  The  great  slavery 
question  was  going  to  be  settled  forever.  The  bushel- 
basket  of  national  peace  and  plenty  and  prosperity  was 
to  be  heaped  up  and  run  over.  Mr.  Pierce  came  all 
the  way  from  the  granite  hills  of  New  Hampshire, 
where  people  are  supposed  to  tell  the  truth,  to  an¬ 
nounce  to  a  happy  country  that  it  was  at  peace — that 
its  bushel-basket  was  never  so  overflowingly  full  before. 
And  then  what  ?  Then  the  bottom  fell  out.  Then  the 
gentlemen  in  the  national  rope -walk  at  Washington 
found  they  had  been  busily  twining  a  rope  of  sand  to 
hold  the  country  together.  They  had  been  trying  to 
compromise  the  principles  of  human  justice,  not  the 
percentage  of  a  tariff ;  the  instincts  of  human  nature 
and  consequently  of  all  permanent  government,  and 
the  conscience  of  the  country  saw  it.  Compromises 
are  the  sheet-anchor  of  the  Union — are  they?  As  the 
English  said  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  that  two 
such  victories  would  ruin  their  army,  so  two  such  sheet- 
anchors  as  the  Compromise  of  1850  would  drag  the 
Union  down  out  of  sight  forever. 

Government  is,  unquestionably,  a  science  of  compro¬ 
mises,  but  only  of  policies  and  interests,  not  of  essen¬ 
tial  rights ;  and  if  of  them,  then  the  sacrifice  must  fall 
equally  on  all. 


So  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

Up  to  this  time  the  argument  of  the  abolitionists, 
who  since  1833  had  been  storming  the  national  con¬ 
science — for  they  knew  the  real  citadel  of  a  nation — with 
the  assertion  that  slavery  was  an  absolute  wrong,  had 
been  met  by  the  reply:  “Yes,  yes;  we  know  all  about 
that.  Of  course  it’s  a  great  wrong.  The  South  agrees 
to  that.  It’s  dreadful  sorry  about  it — but  it’s  got  the 
nasty  thing,  and  it  says  if  we’ll  only  let  it  alone  it  will 
settle  itself.  Slavery  is  one  of  those  things  that  work 
out  themselves.  The  more  you  talk  the  worse  it  is. 
Besides,  it’s  their  own  affair ;  we’ve  nothing  to  do  with 
it.  Let  ’em  alone  !  Let  ’em  alone  !” 

And  the  clergy  said :  “  Certainly,  you’re  quite  right ; 
the  disease  is  awful.  Therefore,  the  only  way  is  to  let 
it  alone.  Amen.  A  contribution  will  now  be  taken  up 
to  extend  Gospel  privileges  to  the  Philippine  Islands.” 

The  abolitionists  retorted  by  declaring  that  you 
might  as  well  let  fire  alone,  by  telling  the  free  States 
that  they  were  bound  to  thrust  back  fugitives,  and 
were,  therefore,  themselves  the  mere  bloodhounds  and 
slaves  of  slavery,  which  could  only  live  by  expansion, 
and  only  wanted  to  be  let  alone  to  become  impregnable. 

“  Pooh  !  pooh  !  nonsense  !”  was  the  reply  ;  “  that’s  all 
very  well  in  theory,  but  it  doesn’t  work  so.  The  re¬ 
turning  of  slaves  amounts  to  nothing  in  fact.  All  that 
is  obsolete.  And  why  make  all  this  row?  Can’t  you 
hush?  We’ve  nothing  to  do  with  slavery,  we  tell  you. 
We  can’t  touch  it ;  and  if  you  persist  in  this  agitation 
about  a  mere  form  and  theory,  why,  you’re  a  set  of  pes¬ 
tilent  fanatics  and  traitors ;  and  if  you  get  your  noisy 
heads  broken,  you  get  just  what  you  deserve.”  And 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  8 1 

they  quoted  in  the  faces  of  the  abolitionists  the  words 
of  Governor  Edward  Everett,  who  was  not  an  authority 
with  them,  in  that  fatal  inaugural  address,  “  The  patri¬ 
otism  of  all  classes  of  citizens  must  be  invited  to  abstain 
from  a  discussion  which,  by  exasperating  the  master, 
can  have  no  other  effect  than  to  render  more  oppressive 
the  condition  of  the  slave.”  It  was  as  if  some  kindly 
Pharisee  had  said  to  Christ,  “  Don’t  try  to  cast  out  that 
evil  spirit ;  it  may  rend  the  body  on  departing.”  Was 
it  not  as  if  some  timid  citizen  had  said,  “  Don’t  say 
hard  things  of  intemperance  lest  the  dram-shops,  to 
spite  us,  should  give  away  the  rum  ”  ? 

And  so  the  battle  raged.  The  abolitionists  dashed 
against  slavery  with  passionate  eloquence  like  a  hail  of 
hissing  fire.  They  lashed  its  supporters  with  the  scor¬ 
pion  whip  of  their  invective.  Ambition,  reputation, 
fortune,  ease,  life  itself  they  threw  upon  the  consuming 
altar  of  their  cause.  Not  since  those  earlier  fanatics  of 
freedom,  Patrick  Henry  and  James  Otis,  has  the  master 
chord  of  human  nature,  the  love  of  liberty,  been  struck 
with  such  resounding  power.  It  seemed  in  vain,  so 
slowly  their  numbers  increased,  so  totally  were  they 
outlawed  from  social  and  political  and  ecclesiastical 
recognition.  The  merchants  of  Boston  mobbed  an 
editor  for  virtually  repeating  the  Declaration  of  Inde¬ 
pendence.  The  city  of  New  York  looked  on  and 
smiled  while  the  present  United  States  marshal  insult¬ 
ed  a  woman  as  noble  and  womanly  and  humane  as 
Florence  Nightingale.  In  other  free  States  men  were 
flying  for  their  lives ;  were  mobbed,  seized,  imprisoned, 
maimed,  murdered ;  but  still  as,  in  the  bitter  days  of 
I.— 6 


82  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

Puritan  persecution  in  Scotland,  the  undaunted  voices 
of  the  Covenanters  were  heard  singing  the  solemn  songs 
of  God  that  echoed  and  re-echoed  from  peak  to  peak  of 
the  barren  mountains,  until  the  great  dumb  wilderness 
was  vocal  with  praise — so  in  little  towns  and  great 
cities  were  heard  the  uncompromising  voices  of  these 
men  sternly  intoning  the  majestic  words  of  the  Golden 
Rule  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  which  ech¬ 
oed  from  solitary  heart  to  heart  until  the  whole  land 
rang  with  the  litany  of  liberty. 

But  still  the  great  public  opinion  of  the  free  States 
was  unmoved.  It  cried  angrily:  “You’re  only  making 
matters  worse.  It’s  very  hard,  but  what  can  we  do? 
It’s  none  of  our  business.  It’s  none  of  our  business.” 

But  when  1850  came,  and  theory  was  found  to  be  fact, 
when  the  man  who  was  angrily  crying,  “  It’s  none  of 
my  business,  what  have  I  to  do  with  slavery  ?”  suddenly 
felt  the  quivering,  panting  fugitive  clinging  to  his  knees 
— a  wretched,  forlorn,  outcast,  hunted  man,  guilty  of  no 
crime  but  color,  and  begging  the  succor  that  no  honest 
man  would  refuse  to  a  cur  cowering  on  his  threshold — 
then,  as  he  stood  aghast  and  heard  Slavery  thundering 
at  his  door,  “  I  am  the  law.  Give  me  my  prey !  Give 
me  my  prey !”  he  felt  God  knocking  at  his  heart, 
“  Whoso  doeth  it  unto  the  least  of  these  my  little  ones, 
doeth  it  unto  me.” 

Up  to  this  time,  as  I  believe,  slavery  had  been  let 
alone,  as  it  claimed  to  be,  in  good  faith.  Up  to  this 
time  it  is  clear  enough  in  our  history  that  there  was  no 
general  perception  of  the  terrible  truth  that  slavery  was 
a  system  aggressive  in  its  very  nature,  and  necessarily 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  83 

destructive  of  Constitutional  rights  and  liberties.  Up 
to  this  time  there  had  been  a  general  blindness  to  the 
fact  that,  under  the  plea,  which  was  allowed,  that  it  was 
a  local  and  State  institution,  slavery  had  acquired  an 
absolute  national  supremacy,  and  if  not  checked  would 
presently  declare  itself  in  national  law  as  the  national 
policy.  I  think  that  the  eyes  of  the  people  were  opened 
rather  by  the  frank  statements  and  legislative  action  in 
Congress  of  the  slave  party;  by  the  speeches  of  Mr. 
Calhoun,  filtered  through  lesser  minds  and  mouths 
than  his ;  at  last  by  the  events  in  Kansas  forcing  every 
man  to  consider  whether,  while  we  had  let  slavery  alone, 
it  had  also  let  us  alone ;  and  forcing  him  to  see  that  its 
hand  was  already  upon  the  throat  of  freedom  in  this 
country.  I  think  that  by  the  acts  of  the  slave  party, 
not  by  the  words  of  the  technical  abolitionists,  the 
country  was  at  last  aroused.  The  moral  wrong  and  the 
political  despotism  of  the  system  were  at  last  perceived, 
and  a  reconstruction  of  political  parties  was  inevitable. 
For  in  human  society,  while  the  individual  conscience 
is  the  steam  or  motive  power,  political  methods  are  the 
engine  and  the  wheels  by  which  progress  is  effected  and 
secured. 

The  country  was  divided  between  the  Whig  and  Dem¬ 
ocratic  organizations.  The  Democratic  party  then,  as 
now,  was  in  open  alliance  with  slavery,  in  a  conspiracy 
against  the  Constitution  and  the  peace  of  the  country. 
Of  that  there  was  no  hope ;  and  when  the  Whig  party 
at  Baltimore  with  fabulous  fatuity  dodged  the  question, 
the  great  Whig  party,  newly  painted  and  repaired,  with 
all  its  guns  burnished,  its  drums  beating  and  colors  fly- 


84  the  present  aspect  of  the  slavery  question 

ing,  went  down  in  a  moment  clean  out  of  sight,  like 
the  Royal  George  at  Spithead,  and  of  all  that  stately 
craft  there  remain  but  a  few  ancient  mariners  drifting 
half-drowned  in  the  water,  and  sputtering  with  winking 
eyes  that  the  ship  had  better  try  another  voyage. 

Out  of  the  chaos  that  followed  the  so-called  final  settle¬ 
ment  of  the  slavery  question  in  1850  arose  the  great  polit¬ 
ical  antislavery  party,  whose  vital  force  is  in  the  con¬ 
science  of  its  supporters,  whose  central  idea  is  the  original 
American  principle — the  equality  of  human  rights — and 
whose  unswerving  policy  is  the  planting  of  the  govern¬ 
ment  ineradicably  upon  that  principle. 

It  is  a  party  of  ideas  and  interests  combined.  It 
holds  with  Jefferson  that  God  has  no  attribute  which 
can  take  part  with  slavery.  It  looks  anxiously  with 
Washington  for  the  means  by  which  it  can  be  abolished. 
It  seeks  with  the  framers  of  the  Northwest  Ordinance 
to  exclude  it  from  the  territories,  because  it  is  at  war 
with  the  essential  principles  of  the  government  and  with 
the  expressed  intention  of  the  Constitution. 

I  confess  I  secretly  suspect  the  Republicanism  of  an 
orator  who  is  more  anxious  to  show  his  hearers  that  he 
respects  what  he  calls  the  rights  of  slavery  than  that  he 
loves  the  rights  of  man.  If  God  be  just  and  the  human 
instinct  true,  slavery  has  no  rights  at  all.  It  has  only  a 
legalized  toleration.  Have  I  a  right  to  catch  a  weaker 
man  than  I,  and  appropriate  him,  his  industry,  and  his 
family,  forever,  against  his  will,  to  my  service  ?  Because 
if  I  have,  any  man  stronger  than  I  has  the  same  right 
over  me.  But  if  I  have  not,  what  possible  right  is  rep¬ 
resented  by  the  two  thousand  million  dollars  of  property 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  85 

in  human  beings  in  this  country?  It  is  the  right  of 
Captain  Kidd  on  the  sea,  of  Dick  Turpin  on  the  land. 
I  certainly  do  not  say  that  every  slave-holder  is  a  bad 
man,  because  I  know  the  contrary.  The  complicity  of 
many  with  the  system  is  inherited,  and  often  unwill¬ 
ing.  But  to  rob  a  man  of  his  liberty,  to  make  him  so 
far  as  possible  a  brute  and  a  thing,  is  not  less  a  crime 
against  human  nature  because  it  is  organized  into  a 
hereditary  system  of  frightful  proportions.  A  wrong 
does  not  become  a  right  by  being  vested. 

If  the  slave -power  could  now  in  good  faith  stand 
where  the  fathers  stood,  with  the  added  lights  of  expe¬ 
rience  shining  upon  the  question,  asking  sympathy  and 
co-operation  in  a  system  of  emancipation,  pleading  that 
it  was  unfair  to  ask  them  to  make  greater  sacrifices  than 
other  men  are  willing  to  make,  allowing  that  it  was  a  com¬ 
mon  evil,  the  cost  and  trouble  of  whose  removal  should 
be  cheerfully  borne  by  all ;  or  if  the  laws  of  any  slave 
State  looked  towards  the  gradual  relief  of  the  difficulty, 
there  is  not  an  honest  man  in  the  North  or  the  South 
whose  heart  would  not  tremble  with  joy  as  he  contem¬ 
plated  the  destiny  of  his  country. 

And  as  I  understand  the  Republican  party,  while  it 
steadily  holds  that  slavery  is  in  itself  a  wrong,  it  does  not 
forget  human  conditions  and  the  actual  state  of  things ; 
and,  therefore,  that  the  questions  of  planting  slavery  in 
fresh  territory  and  of  removing  it  where  it  is  inwrought 
in  a  system  of  society  are  very  different,  as  different  as  the 
prevention  and  the  cure  of  disease.  The  question  of  the 
moment,  then,  is  simply  whether  the  most  unrelenting  and 
permanent  despotism  can  be  justified  by  the  Constitution 


86  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

of  the  United  States.  That  is,  whether  the  makers  of 
the  government  meant  that  the  democratic- republican 
principle  should  gradually,  but  surely,  disappear  from 
that  government.  There  are,  therefore,  but  two  par¬ 
ties  :  one  holding  that  a  system  of  free  society,  the 
other  that  one  of  slave  society,  is  the  real  intention  of 
the  government. 

These  parties  are  sectionally  divided  in  situation,  but 
they  both  aim  to  have  their  idea  become  the  national 
policy.  The  party  of  slavery,  indeed,  is  divided  in  its 
own  camp,  but  only  upon  a  minor  question.  The  point 
of  difference  between  Mr.  Douglas  and  Mr.  Buchanan  is 
not  whether  all  men  under  this  government  have  rights, 
but  simply  in  what  way  those  who  deprive  them  of  those 
rights  shall  be  most  securely  protected.  Mr.  Douglas 
argues  that  the  slave  party  is  the  only  national  party; 
“  because,”  he  says,  “  so  long  as  we  live  under  a  common 
Constitution,  any  political  creed  which  cannot  be  pro¬ 
claimed  wherever  that  Constitution  is  the  supreme  law 
of  the  land  must  be  ruinous  and  fatal.” 

He  makes  short  work  of  it.  For  it  is  a  matter  of  fact 
that  the  creed  of  equal  human  and  consequent  political 
rights  cannot  be  proclaimed  everywhere  in  the  country ; 
and  therefore  whoever,  in  the  present  juncture  of  our 
affairs,  can  proclaim  his  entire  political  creed  as  frankly 
in  Charleston  as  in  Boston,  can  do  it  only  because  he  has 
stricken  from  the  list  our  distinctive  national  principle, 
without  which  we  are  not  Americans  at  all — the  natural 
equal  rights  of  men.  If  Washington  or  Jefferson  or 
Madison  should  utter  upon  his  native  soil  to-day  the 
opinions  he  entertained  and  expressed  upon  this  ques- 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  87 

tion,  he  would  be  denounced  as  a  fanatical  abolitionist. 
To  declare  the  right  of  all  men  to  liberty  is  sectional, 
because  slavery  is  afraid  of  liberty  and  strikes  the  mouth 
that  speaks  the  word.  To  preach  slavery  is  not  sectional 
— no  :  because  freedom  respects  itself  and  believes  in 
itself  enough  to  give  an  enemy  fair  play.  Thus  Boston 
asked  Senator  Toombs  to  come  and  say  what  he  could 
for  slavery.  I  think  Boston  did  a  good  thing,  but  I  think 
Senator  Toombs  is  not  a  wise  man,  for  he  went.  He  went 
all  the  way  from  Georgia  to  show  Massachusetts  how  sla¬ 
very  looks,  and  to  let  it  learn  what  it  has  to  say.  When 
will  Georgia  ask  Wendell  Phillips  or  Charles  Sumner  to 
come  down  and  show  her  how  liberty  looks  and  speaks  ? 

If  a  man  cannot  stand  up  in  Charleston  or  Savannah 
or  Richmond  and  say  that  he  believes  the  right  of  every 
man  to  the  enjoyment  of  life,  liberty,  and  happiness  to 
be  self-evident ;  if  he  be  tarred  and  feathered  for  saying 
it,  or  ridden  upon  a  rail,  or  ducked  in  a  horse -pond, 
or  driven  out  of  his  pulpit  or  professorial  chair,  or  shot 
down  in  his  office,  or^waited  upon  by  a  committee  who 
cannot  be  answerable  for  the  chivalric  impatience  of 
their  fellow-citizens — Mr.  Douglas  says  it  is  a  proof  that 
his  political  principles  are  ruinous  and  fatal ;  which  is 
simply  the  argument  of  a  highway  robber  to  his  victim 
whom  he  knocks  on  the  head,  that  if  he  didn’t  carry  so 
much  money  in  his  pocket  he  wouldn’t  be  robbed. 

The  party  which  is  humorously  called  the  Douglas 
Democracy  no  more  recognizes  the  rights  declared  by 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  be  inalienable  than 
does  the  party  of  the  administration.  Its  leader  repudiates 
the  theory  that  the  Constitution  establishes  slavery,  but 


88  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

he  does  not  perceive  in  it,  or  in  the  circumstances  of  its 
adoption,  or  in  the  expressed  sentiments  and  actions  of 
its  framers,  any  reason  to  suppose  that  it  favors  liberty 
more  than  slavery.  He  leaves  all  human  rights  at  the 
mercy  of  a  majority,  and  insists  that  the  Constitution 
does  the  same. 

Mr.  Douglas  in  his  speech  at  Memphis  expressly  says, 
“  Whenever  a  territory  has  a  climate,  soil,  and  produc¬ 
tions  making  it  the  interest  of  the  inhabitants  to  encour¬ 
age  slave  property,  they  will  pass  a  slave-code  and  give 
it  encouragement.”  He  adds  that  they  have  a  right  to 
do  it;  and  in  his  late  speech  at  Columbus  he  declares 
that  there  must  be  no  interference  with  any  action  of 
any  State  ;  insisting,  according  to  the  report,  amid  great 
laughter  at  the  exquisite  humor  of  the  witticism,  “  If 
you  go  over  to  Virginia  to  steal  her  negroes,  I  trust  she 
will  catch  you  and  put  you  in  jail  with  other  thieves.” 

Ah,  Mr.  Douglas !  Mr.  Douglas !  if  the  little  child 
just  born  to  you  were  stolen  from  your  arms  and  sold 
into  slavery,  and  you  went  through  fire  and  water  to 
rescue  her,  would  you  say  so  airily,  so  jauntily,  with 
such  pleasant  humor,  that  if  you  went  to  steal  her  you 
trust  you  would  be  caught  and  put  in  jail  with  other 
thieves?  And  yet  not  more  do  you  love  that  child 
hanging  at  this  moment  upon  her  mother’s  bosom,  than 
an  old  slave  mother  whom  I  know  in  the  hospital  across 
the  river  loved  the  child  who  forty  years  ago  was  torn 
from  her  breast  and  sold,  and  of  whose  fate  for  forty 
years  that  silent,  sorrowing  Rachel  has  not  heard. 

This  negative  doctrine  of  Mr.  Douglas  that  there  are 
no  rights  anterior  to  governments  is  the  end  of  free 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  89 

society.  If  the  majority  of  a  political  community  have 
a  right  to  establish  slavery  if  they  think  it  for  their  in¬ 
terest,  they  have  the  same  right  to  declare  who  shall  be 
enslaved.  The  doctrine  simply  substitutes  the  despotic, 
irresponsible  tyranny  of  many  for  that  of  one.  If  the 
majority  shall  choose  that  the  interest  of  the  State  re¬ 
quires  the  slaughter  of  all  infants  born  lame,  of  all  per¬ 
sons  more  than  seventy  years  of  age,  they  have  the 
right  to  slaughter  them,  according  to  what  is  called  the 
Democratic  doctrine.  Do  you  think  this  a  ludicrous 
and  extreme  case?  But  if  the  majority  have  a  right  to 
deprive  a  man  of  his  liberty  at  their  pleasure,  they  have 
an  equal  right  to  take  his  life.  For  life  is  no  more  a 
natural  right  than  liberty.  The  individual  citizen,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Mr.  Douglas,  is  not  secure  in  his  person,  in 
his  property,  in  his  family,  for  a  single  moment  from  the 
whim  or  the  passion  or  the  deliberate  will  of  the  ma¬ 
jority,  if  expressed  as  law.  Might  is  not  right.  I  have 
the  power  to  hold  a  child  by  the  throat  until  he  turns 
purple  and  dies.  But  I  have  not  the  right  to  do  it.  A 
State  or  a  Territory  has  the  power  to  steal  a  man’s  lib¬ 
erty  or  labor,  and  to  hold  him  and  his  children’s  chil¬ 
dren  forever  in  slavery.  It  has  the  power  to  do  this  to 
any  man  of  any  color,  of  any  age,  of  any  country,  who 
is  not  strong  enough  to  protect  himself.  But  it  has  no 
more  right  to  do  it  to  an  African  than  to  an  American 
or  an  Irishman,  no  more  right  to  do  it  to  the  most  ig¬ 
norant  and  forsaken  foreigner  than  to  the  prosperous 
and  honored  citizen  of  its  own  country.  “  Fiddle-fad¬ 
dle,”  says  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  “  an 
African  doesn’t  count.  He  is  only  a  negro.  He  has  no 


90  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

friends.  Hit  him  again!  And,  now  that  we  have  de¬ 
cided  the  matter,  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?” 

We  are  going  to  do  what  Patrick  Henry  did  in  Vir¬ 
ginia,  what  James  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams  did  in  Mas¬ 
sachusetts,  what  the  Sons  of  Liberty  did  in  New  York, 
ninety  years  ago.  We  are  going  to  agitate,  agitate, 
agitate.  You  say  you  want  to  rest.  Very  well,  so  do 
we — and  don’t  blame  us  if  you  stuff  your  pillow  with 
thorns.  You  say  you  are  tired  of  the  eternal  negro. 
Very  well;  stop  trying  to  turn  a  man  into  a  thing  be¬ 
cause  he  happens  to  be  black,  and  you’ll  stop  our 
mouths  at  the  same  time.  But  while  you  keep  at  your 
work,  be  perfectly  sure  that  we  shall  keep  at  ours.  If 
you  are  up  at  five  o’clock,  we  shall  be  up  at  four.  We 
shall  agitate,  agitate,  agitate,  until  the  Supreme  Court, 
obeying  the  popular  will,  proclaims  that  all  men  have 
original  equal  rights  which  government  did  not  give 
and  cannot  justly  take  away. 

The  country  does  want  rest,  we  all  want  rest.  Our 
very  civilization  wants  it — and  we  mean  that  it  shall 
have  it.  It  shall  have  rest — repose — refreshment  of 
soul  and  reinvigoration  of  faculty.  And  that  rest  shall 
be  of  life  and  not  of  death.  It  shall  not  be  a  poison 
that  pacifies  restlessness  in  death,  nor  shall  it  be  any 
kind  of  anodyne  or  patting  or  propping  or  bolstering 
— as  if  a  man  with  a  cancer  in  his  breast  would  be  well 
if  he  only  said  he  was  so  and  wore  a  clean  shirt  and 
kept  his  shoes  tied.  We  want  the  rest  of  a  real  Union, 
not  of  a  name,  not  of  a  great  transparent  sham,  which 
good  old  gentlemen  must  coddle  and  pat  and  dandle, 
and  declare  wheedlingly  is  the  dearest  Union  that  ever 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  9 1 

was,  so  it  is ;  and  naughty,  ugly  old  fanatics  sha’n’t 
frighten  the  pretty  precious — no,  they  sha’n’t.  Are  we 
babies  or  men?  This  is  not  the  Union  our  fathers 
framed — and  when  slavery  says  that  it  will  tolerate  a 
Union  on  condition  that  freedom  holds  its  tongue  and 
consents  that  the  Constitution  means  first  slavery  at  all 
costs  and  then  liberty,  if  you  can  get  it,  it  speaks  plainly 
and  manfully,  and  says  what  it  means.  There  are  not 
wanting  men  enough  to  fall  on  their  knees  and  cry: 
“  Certainly,  certainly,  stay  on  those  terms.  Don’t  go 
out  of  the  Union — please  don’t  go  out;  we’ll  promise 
to  take  great  care  in  future  that  you  have  everything 
you  want.  Hold  our  tongues?  Certainly.  These 
people  who  talk  about  liberty  are  only  a  few  fanatics 
— they  are  tolerably  educated,  but  most  of  ’em  are 
crazy ;  we  don’t  speak  to  them  in  the  street ;  we  don’t 
ask  them  to  dinner;  really,  they  are  of  no  account, 
and  if  you’ll  really  consent  to  stay  in  the  Union,  we’ll 
see  if  we  can’t  turn  Plymouth  Rock  into  a  lump  of 
dough.” 

I  don’t  believe  the  Southern  gentlemen  want  to  be 
fed  on  dough.  I  believe  they  see  quite  as  clearly  as  we 
do  that  this  is  not  the  sentiment  of  the  North,  because 
they  can  read  the  election  returns  as  well  as  we.  The 
thoughtful  men  among  them  see  and  feel  that  there  is  a 
hearty  abhorrence  of  slavery  among  us,  and  a  hearty 
desire  to  prevent  its  increase  and  expansion,  and  a  con¬ 
stantly  deepening  conviction  that  the  two  systems  of 
society  are  incompatible.  When  they  want  to  know 
the  sentiment  of  the  North,  they  do  not  open  their  ears 
to  speeches,  they  open  their  eyes,  and  go  and  look  in 


92  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION 

the  ballot-box,  and  they  see  there  a  constantly  growing 
resolution  that  the  Union  of  the  United  States  shall  no 
longer  be  a  pretty  name  for  the  extension  of  slavery 
and  the  subversion  of  the  Constitution.  Both  parties 
stand  front  to  front.  Each  claims  that  the  other  is  ag¬ 
gressive,  that  its  rights  have  been  outraged,  and  that  the 
Constitution  is  on  its  side.  Who  shall  decide?  Shall  it 
be  the  Supreme  Court  ?  But  that  is  only  a  co-ordinate 
branch  of  the  government.  Its  right  to  decide  is  not 
mutually  acknowledged.  There  is  no  universally  rec¬ 
ognized  official  expounder  of  the  meaning  of  the  Con¬ 
stitution.  Such  an  instrument,  written  or  unwritten, 
always  means  in  a  crisis  what  the  people  choose.  The 
people  of  the  United  States  will  always  interpret  the 
Constitution  for  themselves,  because  that  is  the  nature 
of  popular  governments,  and  because  they  have  learned 
that  judges  are  sometimes  appointed  to  do  partisan 
service. 

Therefore  our  Constitution  will  always  be  the  meas¬ 
ure  of  our  national  morality  ;  and  if  we  were  all  sorry,  it 
would  still  be  true.  I  am  not  sorry,  for  it  founds  the 
government  in  the  character  of  the  people,  and  hence 
everything  in  the  future  depends  upon  the  popular  faith 
in  the  original  principles  of  the  government.  If  the 
people  of  this  country  do  believe  with  the  fathers  that 
there  are  self-evident,  original,  and  indefeasible  human 
rights,  then  slavery  will  surely,  quietly,  and  legally  be 
terminated,  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  If  they  do  not  believe  that  there  are  such 
rights,  then  slavery  will,  just  as  surely,  quietly,  and 
legally,  be  established  under  the  Constitution,  which,  as 


THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  93 

the  paramount  law  of  the  land,  will  legalize  it  in  New 
York  as  well  as  in  Alabama,  leaving  the  policy  of  adopt¬ 
ing  it  to  be  decided  by  individual  judgment. 

Such  is  the  present  aspect  of  the  slavery  question. 
For  myself,  I  believe  that  the  faith  in  which  the  govern¬ 
ment  was  founded  still  survives.  I  believe  that  the 
spirit  of  despotism  which  now  says  to  the  country,  “  I 
will  rule  or  ruin,”  will  hear  the  imperial  voice  of  the 
conscience  of  the  American  people,  recognizing  that 
justice  and  prosperity  walk  hand  in  hand,  saying,  “  You 
will  do  neither.”  I  believe  that  God  did  not  hide  this 
continent  through  all  time  as  the  spot  whereon  a  nation 
should  be  planted  upon  the  only  principle  that  can  ren¬ 
der  a  nation  as  permanent  as  the  race,  to  suffer  the 
experiment  to  fail  within  a  century.  I  believe  these 
truths  to  be  self-evident  —  that  all  men  are  created 
equal ;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
certain  inalienable  rights ;  that  among  these  are  life, 
liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Do  you  believe 
it?  If  aye,  let  us  go  into  the  battle,  and  God  speed  the 
right. 


IV 

THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 

AN  ORATION  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  B.  K.  SOCIETY  OF 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY,  JULY  1 7,  1 862. 


The  following  oration,  first  delivered  in  the  summer  of  1862 
before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Harvard  University,  was 
repeated  forty  times  in  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Rhode 
Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  and  Pennsylvania,  during  the 
ensuing  year. 

The  summer  of  1862  was  perhaps  the  darkest  period  of  the 
war.  In  September,  President  Lincoln  issued  his  preliminary 
Proclamation  of  Emancipation  ;  on  the  first  of  January,  1863,  this 
was  followed  by  the  final  Proclamation. 

In  the  directing  and  confirming  of  public  sentiment  and  opin¬ 
ion  this  Address  of  Mr.  Curtis  was  of  great  service. 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


While  the  horizon  mutters,  and  our  hearts  and  ears 
are  strained  and  listening — while  brave  men  fight  and 
fall,  and  the  streets  are  sad  with  maimed  and  wasted 
soldiers — while  every  home  sits  waiting  for  its  victim, 
we  will  not  try  to  avoid  the  imperial  interest  of  the 
hour.  What  are  they  fighting  for  ?  What  are  they 
falling  for?  Why  is  the  grief  that  bends  over  the 
young  dead  returning,  so  lofty  and  resigned  ?  Ask 
them  as  they  lie  there.  Could  they  speak,  they  would 
answer:  “  Not  in  vain  we  fell.  Life  was  well  lost  for 
our  country. ” 

But  what  is  the  cause  of  the  country?  We  are  fight¬ 
ing  for  the  Constitution,  for  the  Union  and  the  govern¬ 
ment.  But  what  is  the  great  purpose  behind  these,  to  se¬ 
cure  which  they  were  established,  and  which  consecrates 
and  irradiates  them  to  every  true  American?  The  an¬ 
swer  is  familiar.  That  purpose  is  the  security  of  civil 
and  religious  liberty.  The  principle  of  our  national  ex¬ 
istence  is  liberty  secured  by  law.  And  by  liberty  we 
mean  a  freedom  more  comprehensive  than  any  other 
people,  living  or  dead,  has  contemplated.  The  achieve¬ 
ment  of  all  other  nations  should  be  only  wings  to  Amer- 
I.-7 


98 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


ican  feet  that  they  may  hasten  to  heights  that  Greek 
and  Roman,  that  Englishman  and  Frenchman  and  Ger¬ 
man,  never  trod.  Were  they  wise  ?  Let  us  be  wiser. 
Were  they  noble  ?  Let  us  be  nobler.  Were  they  just? 
Let  us  be  juster.  Were  they  free?  Let  our  very  air 
be  freedom.  Seated  in  the  temperate  latitudes  of  a 
new  continent,  with  free  hands,  free  hearts,  free  brains, 
and  free  tongues,  we  are  called  to  a  destiny  as  manifest 
as  the  great  heroism  and  the  lofty  principle  that  made 
us  a  nation.  That  destiny  is  the  utmost  development 
of  liberty.  Let  those  who  will,  cower  before  the 
chances  that  attend  all  development.  Let  those  who 
will,  despond  and  despair  of  that  perfect  liberty  with 
which  God  has  made  us  all  free.  But  let  us  now,  here, 
in  the  solemn  moments  which  are  deciding  if  there  is  to 
be  a  distinctive  America,  resolve  that  even  were  the 
American  system  to  fade  from  history,  the  American 
principle  should  survive  immortal  in  our  hearts.  Let 
us,  then,  contemplate  the  American  doctrine  of  liberty 
— not  in  any  single  direction,  political,  social,  or  moral ; 
not  in  any  necessary  but  temporary  limitation  or  detail ; 
but  in  all  the  ample  and  jubilant  splendor  of  its  spirit 
and  promise,  lifting  our  eyes  to  see  how  beautiful  upon 
the  mountains  are  the  feet  of  its  approach,  mountains 
that  we  are  slowly  climbing  still,  and  are  yet  to  climb, 
but  the  heavenly  glory  at  whose  summits  is  the  harbin¬ 
ger  of  day. 

It  is  especially  important  that  we  should  all  under¬ 
stand  what  the  scope  of  that  doctrine  is,  because  of  the 
incessant,  unscrupulous,  and  specious  effort  which  is 
made  to  belie,  limit,  and  deride  it.  Our  history  for 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


99 


many  years  is  the  story  of  a  systematic  endeavor  to  de¬ 
bauch  the  national  conscience  and  destroy  the  Ameri¬ 
can  idea.  By  the  falsification  of  history ;  by  the  basest 
appeal  to  prejudices  of  race  and  color;  by  the  solemn 
sophistry  of  theologians  who  adduce  the  divine  toler¬ 
ance  of  wrong-doing  as  a  divine  sanction  of  wrong ;  by 
the  cold  and  creaking  effort  of  orators  who,  losing  the 
sacred  inspiration  which  is  the  very  burden  and  glory  of 
our  history,  virtually  excuse  this  wanton  war  of  some  cit¬ 
izens  upon  the  government,  the  nation,  and  human  lib¬ 
erty,  because  others  have  constantly  professed  their  faith 
in  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  government ;  by  the 
most  shameless  falsehood  and  reckless  pandering  to  sel¬ 
fishness  and  passion — the  attempt  is  persistently  mak¬ 
ing  to  destroy  the  very  root  of  the  American  doctrine 
of  liberty,  which  is  the  equality  of  human  rights  based 
upon  our  common  humanity.  The  ultimate  scope  of 
that  doctrine  is  the  absolute  personal  and  political  free¬ 
dom  of  every  man :  the  right,  that  is  to  say,  of  every 
man  to  think  and  speak  and  act,  subject  to  the  equal 
rights  of  other  men,  protected  in  their  exercise  by  com¬ 
mon  consent,  or  law.  It  declares  that  men  are  to  be 
deprived  of  personal  liberty  only  for  crime,  and  that 
political  liberty  is  the  only  sure  guarantee  of  personal 
freedom.  These  are  the  postulates  of  our  civilization. 
Consequently  our  normal  social  condition  is  a  constant 
enlarging  of  liberty ;  and  any  connivance  at  the  perma¬ 
nent  restraint  of  personal,  political,  or  moral  freedom, 
except  from  essential  incompetency,  as  of  youth  or  in¬ 
sanity,  is  a  disturbance  of  the  divine  order  in  human 
development. 


100 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


The  common  humanity  which  is  the  source  of  all 
equality  of  right  is  attested  by  the  universality  of  lan¬ 
guage  and  of  religion  in  every  race — word  answering 
to  word,  sacred  tradition  linked  with  tradition  ;  but  its 
loveliest  witness  is  the  universal  sympathy  of  man  with 
man.  The  heart  that  leaps  to-day  with  the  resounding 
line  of  Homeric  story;  that  finds  in  the  Egyptian  tombs 
of  Beni  Hassan  the  faint  foreshadowing  of  Greek  tem¬ 
ples,  and  in  the  mute  magnificence  of  the  statues  of 
Aboo  Simbel  a  silence  which  it  understands ;  the  heart 
that  bleeds  with  the  wronged  Indians  of  Hispaniola, 
and  sings  with  the  African  mother  bringing  milk  to  the 
poor  white  man  Mungo  Park;  that  blesses  the  American 
Nathan  Hale  grieving  that  he  had  but  one  life  to  lose 
for  his  country,  and  the  African  Toussaint  l’Ouverture 
dying  a  thousand  deaths  for  his  race  among  the  Jura 
mountains — this  is  the  unerring  heart  of  man  attesting 
his  equal  humanity.  This  is  the  eternal  witness  that,  of 
every  variety  of  race,  complexion,  capacity,  intelligence, 
and  civilization,  it  is  the  same  human  family  that  streams 
across  the  ages,  its  progress  like  the  fluctuating  mass  of 
an  advancing  army,  with  its  daring  outposts  and  pickets, 
its  steady  centre,  its  remote  wings,  its  dim  and  back¬ 
ward  reserves,  stretching  many  a  mile  from  front  to 
rear,  over  hills  and  valleys,  over  plains  and  rivers ;  here 
bivouacking  in  pastoral  repose,  there  tossed  upon  the 
agonized  verge  of  battle ;  but  one  great  army  still,  with 
one  heart  beating  along  the  endless  line,  with  one  ce¬ 
lestial  captain,  one  inspiring,  consecrated  hope. 

But  the  common  humanity  of  men  and  the  con¬ 
sequent  equality  of  human  rights,  although  obvious 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


IOI 


enough,  have  been  but  vaguely  and  sentimentally  ac¬ 
knowledged,  even  in  the  freest  and  fairest  epochs.  Peri¬ 
cles  in  the  funeral  oration  recounts  the  splendor,  the 
strength,  the  tolerance  of  Athens.  How  lovely  the 
picture  still !  In  that  soft  air,  on  that  bright  plain,  life 
for  a  few  was  all  a  festival.  But  in  the  golden  noon  of 
Athenian  liberty  there  were  five  hundred  thousand  in¬ 
habitants  in  Attica,  and  more  than  four  hundred  thou¬ 
sand  of  them  had  no  acknowledged  rights  whatever. 
When  we  speak  of  Athenian  liberty  we  mean  only  the 
privilege  of  a  few  fortunate  men.  So,  too,  Rome  was 
but  a  few  families.  The  Roman  republic  was  a  pa¬ 
trician  class,  that  slew  Tiberius  Gracchus,  the  republi¬ 
can.  The  language  has  no  terms  for  human  rights. 
The  Roman  mind  could  conceive  an  empire,  but  not  a 
man.  Rome  could  conquer  the  world,  but  humanity 
defied  her.  Spartacus  was  a  barbarian,  a  pagan,  and  a 
slave.  Escaping,  he  summoned  other  men  whose  liberty 
was  denied.  His  call  rang  through  Italy  like  an  au¬ 
tumn  storm  through  the  forest,  and  men  answered  him 
like  clustering  leaves.  He  dashed  them  against  the 
other  men,  thieves  of  their  liberty,  and  three  times  he 
overwhelmed  them.  Flushed  with  victory  and  rage  he 
turned  his  conquering  sword  at  the  very  heart  of  Rome, 
and  the  terrified  despot  of  the  world  at  last  crushed  him 
with  the  energy  of  despair.  He  was  not  a  man  in  Ro¬ 
man  eyes,  but  Rome  tottered  before  him,  and  fell  before 
his  descendants.  He  had  no  rights  that  Romans  were 
bound  to  respect,  but  he  wrote  out  in  blood  upon  the 
plains  of  Lombardy  his  equal  humanity  with  Cato  and 
Caesar.  The  tale  is  terrible.  History  shudders  with  it 


102 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


still.  But  you  and  I,  Plato  and  Shakespeare,  the  might¬ 
iest  and  the  meanest  men,  were  honored  in  Spartacus, 
for  his  wild  revenge  showed  the  brave  scorn  of  oppres¬ 
sion  that  beats  immortal  in  the  proud  heart  of  man. 

In  all  nations,  indeed,  there  have  been  varying  de¬ 
grees  of  liberty.  In  Athens,  where  both  personal  and 
political  freedom  were  totally  unknown  to  the  great 
bulk  of  the  people,  there  was  doubtless  a  marvellous 
liberty  of  thought  and  speech  among  the  happy  Athe¬ 
nian  few.  On  the  other  hand,  in  Puritan  New  England, 
where  almost  every  man  was  a  voter,  religious  liberty 
was  annihilated.  Yet  neither  in  pagan  Greece  nor  in 
Christian  New  England  was  the  true  ground  of  liberty 
either  seen  or  confessed.  No,  nor  yet  in  old  England 
to-day,  upon  whose  shore  we  may  set  foot  and  hear  the 
air  ringing  with  the  famous  burst  of  Curran,  that  who¬ 
ever  touches  that  soil  “  stands  redeemed,  regenerated, 
and  disenthralled  by  the  irresistible  genius  of  universal 
emancipation.”  The  fiery  rhetoric  cannot  make  us 
forget  what  the  intelligent  English  radical  told  Mr. 
Olmsted,  that  the  farm  laborers  in  certain  districts  of 
England — whom  Mr.  Olmsted  himself  describes  as  more 
like  animals  than  any  negro  or  Indian  or  Chinese  or  Ma¬ 
lay  he  ever  saw — although  forming  the  most  numerous 
single  class  in  the  country,  are  not  thought  of  in  form¬ 
ing  an  estimate  of  national  character.  That  rhetoric 
cannot  prevent  our  wondering  if  a  social  system  is  yet 
safely  adjusted,  in  which  the  Marquis  of  Breadalbane 
rides  upon  his  own  estate  seventy  miles  from  sea  to  sea, 
while  five  millions  of  factory  laborers  squeeze  through 
life  upon  starvation  wages.  No  siren  eloquence  can 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  103 

sing  away  the  perception  that  British  society  is  but  a 
modified  feudalism ;  and  spite  of  the  Englishmen  whose 
names  are  hallowed,  of  the  good  and  noble  men  who 
make  Shakespeare  and  Milton  possible  Englishmen, 
who  so  plainly  see  and  clearly  say  the  truth  of  our 
great  struggle — despite  these  men,  the  instinctive  sym¬ 
pathy  of  England  with  the  Rebellion  rather  than  with 
the  government  is  not  commercial  only ;  it  is  deeper 
than  that :  it  is  organic ;  it  is  social  and  political.  The 
comely  feudalism  of  England — a  system  of  class  priv¬ 
ilege,  not  of  human  right — stretches  out  its  hand,  muf¬ 
fled  in  cotton,  to  the  hideous  hag  of  human  slavery 
over  the  sea,  in  whom  it  owns  a  ghastly  kindred  with 
itself. 

But  the  habit  of  domestic  political  freedom  in  the 
American  colonies,  which  was  almost  universal,  com¬ 
bined  with  the  general  education  which  such  freedom 
secures,  and  which  their  circumstances  favored,  forced 
the  thinking  men  in  the  colonies  to  understand  the 
grounds  of  the  liberty  which  they  instinctively  demand¬ 
ed.  In  great  emergencies  men  always  rise  to  cardinal 
principles,  as,  in  sailing  out  of  sight  of  land,  the  mariner 
looks  up  and  steers  by  the  sun  and  stars.  In  their 
golden  maturity  of  wisdom  and  strength,  with  a  pro¬ 
found  faith  in  principle  which  no  other  body  of  men 
have  rivalled,  and  which  their  own  sons  have  not  even 
comprehended,  our  fathers  began  with  God  and  human 
nature,  founding  their  government  upon  truths  which 
they  disdained  to  argue,  declaring  them  to  be  self-evi¬ 
dent.  The  wise  West  Indian  boy,  Alexander  Hamilton, 
cried  with  the  bright  ardor  of  conviction :  “  The  sacred 


104 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


rights  of  mankind  are  not  to  be  rummaged  for  among 
old  parchments  or  musty  records.  They  are  written  as 
with  a  sunbeam  in  the  whole  volume  of  human  nature, 
and  can  never  be  erased  or  obscured  by  mortal  power.” 
James  Otis,  the  fiery  tongue  of  the  early  Revolution,  de¬ 
clared  that,  “  The  Colonists  are  men,  the  Colonists  are 
therefore  free-born,  for  by  the  law  of  nature  all  men  are 
free-born,  black  or  white.”  “Amen,”  said  the  gallant 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  a  Virginian  when  Virginian  was  a 
name  of  honor,  “  the  right  to  life  and  the  right  to  lib¬ 
erty  are  inalienable.”  John  Adams  responded,  “  My 
friends,  human  nature  itself  is  evermore  an  advocate  for 
liberty.”  The  town  of  Providence,  in  voting  for  a  Con¬ 
tinental  Congress,  declared  “  personal  liberty  an  essen¬ 
tial  part  of  the  natural  rights  of  mankind.”  “  Freedom,” 
said  the  Virginian  Gazette ,  “  is  the  birthright  of  all  man¬ 
kind,  Africans  as  well  as  Europeans.”  Then  came  the 
great  Virginians,  Madison,  Mason,  Patrick  Henry,  Ed¬ 
mund  Randolph,  and  their  peers,  with  their  Declaration 
of  Rights,  “  All  men  are  by  nature  equally  free  and 
have  inherent  rights,  namely,  the  enjoyment  of  life  and 
liberty,  with  the  means  of  acquiring  and  possessing 
property,  and  pursuing  and  obtaining  happiness  and 
safety.”  And  at  last  Thomas  Jefferson,  happy  among 
men  that  his  hand  was  chosen,  gathered  in  one  glowing 
paean  the  inspiration  of  the  time,  declaring  the  truth 
to  be  self-evident  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 
The  fathers  said  what  they  meant  and  meant  what  they 
said.  They  meant  all  men,  not  some  men,  and,  calling 
God  and  the  world  to  witness,  they  said  all  men.  The 
Sons  of  the  Morning  sang  together,  and  the  clear  chorus 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  105 

rang  through  the  world.  And  while  one  burning  phrase, 
“  Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death,”  keeps  our  great¬ 
est  orator’s  name  fresh  in  our  hearts  forever,  where  is 
he  who  dares  to  call  that  principle  “  a  glittering  gen¬ 
erality  ” — that  declaration  of  the  only  true  ground  of 
national  honor  and  national  peace  the  “  passionate  man¬ 
ifesto  of  a  revolutionary  war”? 

“  Who  but  must  laugh  if  such  a  man  there  be  ? 

Who  would  not  weep  if  Atticus  were  he?” 

The  American  doctrine  founds  liberty  in  the  natural 
equality  of  men.  The  conspiracy  against  liberty  plants 
itself  here  and  elsewhere  upon  a  denial  of  that  equal¬ 
ity.  Politicians  whose  hopes  rest  upon  the  popular 
ignorance  and  prejudice,  and  not  upon  the  popular  in¬ 
telligence,  furiously  sneer  at  the  idea  of  equality.  It  is 
important,  therefore,  that  every  man  should  understand 
what  human  equality  is.  It  is  an  elemental  lesson,  but 
the  attack  is  made  at  the  very  foundation  and  must  be 
met  there. 

How  then  are  we  born  equal?  Clearly  we  are  not 
all,  or  any  of  us,  equal  in  capacity,  in  circumstance,  or 
condition.  We  are  not  equal  in  our  height  or  weight; 
in  the  color  of  our  hair  or  eyes.  Does  the  doctrine  im¬ 
ply  that  Benedict  Arnold  is  equal  in  honor  to  George 
Washington?  that  Martin  Farquhar  Tupper  is  equal  in 
genius  to  Shakespeare?  or  that  Robert  Toombs  is  equal 
in  honor  and  heroic  patriotism  to  Robert  Smalls?  No 
— any  more  than  it  declares  General  Tom  Thumb  to  be 
the  equal  in  stature  of  the  Belgian  Giant,  or  Lucrezia 
Borgia  of  equal  humanity  with  Florence  Nightingale. 


io6 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


The  equality  which  underlies  our  doctrine  of  liberty  is 
an  equality  of  right. 

And  there  is  no  limitation  to  this  right.  It  is  not 
true  of  some  men  and  untrue  of  others.  If  any  man 
has  it,  all  men  have  it.  What  right  have  you  to  your 
life  and  liberty  that  I,  being  guiltless,  have  not  to 
mine  ?  And  if  any  man  or  society  of  men  deny  them 
to  me  and  claim  to  take  them  away,  what  is  the  au¬ 
thority  ?  What  can  it  be  but  brute  force,  which  would 
have  submitted  Plato  to  any  Persian  bully,  and  did  sub¬ 
mit  Christ  to  Herod.  I  am  a  weaker  man  than  you — 
am  I  less  a  man  ?  If  you  steal  my  life  or  liberty  for 
that,  a  stronger  man  may  by  the  same  right  steal  yours. 
I  am  a  duller  man  than  you — am  I  less  a  man?  If  for 
that  reason  you  defraud  me,  beware  of  wiser  men  than 
yourself.  I  am  a  darker  man  than  you  —  am  I  less  a 
man  ?  If  for  that  cause  you  enslave  me,  the  idiot 
albinos  are  the  born  kings  of  men. 

The  foundation  of  liberty  in  natural  right  was  no 
boast  of  passionate  rhetoric  from  the  mouths  of  the  fa¬ 
thers.  They  were  neither  dreamers  nor  visionaries,  and 
they  were  much  too  earnest  to  be  mere  rhetoricians. 
Thus  they  were  not  hypocrites  in  the  question  of  slavery. 
Their  common-sense  is  the  most  contemptuous  censure 
of  our  modern  sophistry.  We  believe  in  the  rights  of 
man,  they  said,  and  of  course  slavery  is  wrong.  But  it 
is  a  question  of  fact  as  well  as  principle.  The  slaves 
are  entitled  to  their  personal  freedom  as  much  as  we ; 
now  how,  under  all  the  circumstances,  shall  they  soon¬ 
est  regain  it  with  the  least  loss  of  every  kind  of  liberty 
to  every  man  in  the  land  ?  We  no  more  defend  slavery 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  1 07 

because  we  hold  slaves,  than  when  we  are  ill  we  defend 
disease.  Every  man  ought  to  be  well,  but,  being  sick, 
the  question  is  how  most  safely  and  soonest  to  be 
cured.  Therefore  when  they  established  the  govern¬ 
ment  they  made  a  fundamental  law  so  peacefully  ex¬ 
pansive  that  it  should  gladly  allow  the  disappearance 
of  slavery  which  they  contemplated  and  the  utmost  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  freedom  which  they  designed.  Mind¬ 
ful  of  the  rights  of  the  political  communities  of  which 
they  were  all  members,  they  did  not  forget  the  rights 
of  man  which  political  communities  existed  to  protect. 

The  last  words  of  the  Continental  Congress,  retiring 
before  the  new  government,  have  a  startling  and  tragical 
significance  as  we  hear  them  through  the  raging  tem¬ 
pest  of  this  civil  war — “  Let  it  never  be  forgotten  that 
the  rights  for  which  America  has  contended  are  the 
rights  of  human  nature.”  In  that  solemn  hour  they 
charged  us.  Their  lips,  glowing  with  the  words  of  a 
faith  that  shames  us,  calling  God  to  witness,  told  us 
not  to  forget.  We  have  forgotten — oh,  for  the  broken 
hearts,  for  the  costly  lives,  for  the  blood-red  land ! — we 
tiave  forgotten,  and  God  is  entering  into  judgment. 

So  august  is  the  American  doctrine  of  liberty.  It 
ought  not  to  be  less,  for  this  only  is  absolutely  universal. 
It  is  so  vast  that  it  promises  endless  progress.  It  is  so 
pure  that  it  requires  the  sincerest  faith.  It  is  so  true 
that  virtue  alone  can  achieve  it.  Do  we  believe  this  doc¬ 
trine  ?  Do  we  believe  that  the  right  of  personal,  politi¬ 
cal,  and  moral  liberty  inheres  in  human  nature  and 
belongs  to  every  man  ?  I  do  not  ask  whether  we  think 
every  Malay  or  Patagonian  ought  to  vote,  or  whether 


io8 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


the  Grand  Lama  ought  to  turn  himself  into  a  Constitu¬ 
tional  President  of  Thibet,  but  whether  we  agree  that 
the  cardinal  principles  of  progressive  civilization  are  the 
clear  perception  that  every  man  is  entitled  to  this  liber¬ 
ty,  and  that  our  duty  is  the  unwearied  effort  wisely  to 
secure  it  for  him.  That  in  this  country  we  owe  a  double 
allegiance,  that  we  are  citizens  of  a  State  and  also  of  a 
nation,  that  the  fundamental  law  leaves  to  the  States  in 
time  of  peace  the  absolute  regulation  of  their  domestic 
affairs,  are  truths  which  in  no  way  conflict  with  our  obli¬ 
gations  as  morally  responsible  men  incessantly  to  work 
for  the  enlightenment  and  elevation  of  all  men.  Nor, 
because  I  am  a  loyal  citizen  of  the  State  of  New  York 
and  of  the  United  States,  and  honorably  bound  to  re¬ 
spect  the  right  of  every  State  to  care  for  itself,  am  I 
required  to  shut  my  eyes  or  hold  my  tongue  if  the  State 
of  California  shall  legalize  murder  or  theft,  or  the  State 
of  Massachusetts  shall  enact  that  all  citizens  who  are 
more  than  sixty  years  old  shall  be  enslaved.  I  may  say 
— nay,  I  am  a  traitor  to  my  State,  to  my  country,  to  my 
race,  and  to  my  Creator,  if  I  do  not  say — that  such  laws 
are  most  dangerous  and  wicked  ;  and  for  the  very  simple 
reason  that  whatever  strikes  at  the  natural  rights  of  any 
man  in  any  State  wounds  every  man  in  all  the  States 
and  pierces  the  heart  of  the  nation.  And  manifestly  it 
is  only  by  the  freest  possible  discussion  in  all  the  States 
of  every  question  which  affects  the  national  policy  that 
that  policy  can  be  wisely  determined.  When,  there¬ 
fore,  a  man  says  regretfully  that  if  the  discussion  of 
human  rights  could  only  have  been  suppressed  in  this 
country  there  would  have  been  no  civil  war,  he  says 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  109 

merely  that  if  we  had  but  quietly  consented  to  renounce 
the  most  precious  of  our  Constitutional  rights,  we  should 
have  surrendered  all  the  rest  without  a  struggle.  And 
he  speaks  truly.  For  if,  by  common  consent  and  a  de¬ 
plorably  false  conception  of  State  rights,  the  citizens  of 
this  country  had  allowed  their  tongues  to  be  tied,  had 
suffered  the  Constitution  to  be  nullified,  as  it  was  in  half 
the  country,  and  no  voice  had  protested  and  warned  us 
of  the  sure  and  stealthy  destruction  of  the  principle  of 
liberty  in  our  national  government  by  that  of  despot¬ 
ism,  then  when  a  little  while  had  revealed  the  ghastly 
spectacle  of  that  despotism  crowning  itself  with  the  iron 
band  of  absolute  power,  it  might  well  have  been  too  late 
to  recover  the  liberty  at  whose  loss  we  had  connived.  O 
friends !  we  may  pardon  that  voice,  may  we  not,  if  it 
were  acrimonious,  passionate,  vituperative,  fierce?  Yes; 
but  so  with  angry,  jagged  dart  the  lightning  stabs  the 
stagnant  body  of  the  summer  air — a  blinding  glare,  an 
awful  crash — but  lo !  the  soft  splendors  of  the  sunset 
follow,  then  shine  the  stars,  and  at  last  the  ambrosial 
air  of  morning  breathes  coolness,  health,  and  peace  upon 
a  world  renewed. 

Taught  by  terrible  experience,  therefore,  the  danger 
of  forgetting  our  doctrine  of  liberty,  let  us  look  at  one 
or  two  of  the  more  specious  ways  in  which  it  is  practi¬ 
cally  thwarted  or  denied ;  let  us  see  where  we  are  weak, 
that  we  may  know  where  to  strengthen  ourselves. 

And,  first,  of  liberty  of  thought  and  speech.  These 
are  indeed  expressly  affirmed  in  our  fundamental  laws ; 
but  you  remember  the  startlingly  direct  remark  of  De 
Tocqueville,  “I  know  no  country  in  which  there  is  so 


no 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


little  true  independence  of  mind  and  freedom  of  discus¬ 
sion  as  in  America.”  The  reason  is  obvious.  Political 
and  public  success  with  us  depend  upon  popular  favor 
and  party  votes;  but,  as  the  great  mass  of  men  every¬ 
where  are  comparatively  uninstructed  and  prejudiced, 
the  condition  of  their  favor  is  rather  conformity  to  their 
prejudices  than  appeal  to  their  noblest  instincts.  Yet 
the  power  of  public  opinion  in  this  country  and  the  dan¬ 
ger  of  its  debasement  cannot  be  exaggerated,  when  you 
reflect  that  progress  is  truly  practicable  only  when  it  is 
the  result  of  the  popular  conviction.  Until  the  people 
are  persuaded,  the  law  is  premature ;  and  a  law  to  be 
truly  respected  must  represent  the  conviction  of  the  na¬ 
tion.  Therefore  the  real  patriot  in  this  country  is  he 
who  sees  most  clearly  what  the  nation  ought  to  desire, 
who  does  what  he  can  by  plain  and  brave  speech  to  in¬ 
fluence  it  to  that  desire,  and  then  urges  and  supports 
the  laws  which  express  it.  But  as  public  opinion  is 
necessarily  so  powerful  with  us,  we  fear  it  and  flatter  it, 
and  so  pamper  it  into  a  tyrant.  How  the  country  teems 
with  conspicuous  men,  scholars,  orators,  politicians,  di¬ 
vines,  advocates,  public  teachers  all,  whose  speeches, 
sermons,  letters,  votes,  actions,  are  a  prolonged,  inces¬ 
sant  falsehood  and  sophism ;  a  soft  and  shallow  wooing 
of  the  Public  Alexander  and  the  Public  Cromwell,  tell¬ 
ing  him  that  he  has  no  crook  in  his  neck  and  no  wart 
on  his  nose.  How  many  of  our  public  men,  our  famous 
orators,  have  sharply  criticised  our  life  and  tendency? 
How  many  have  said  what  they  thought,  rather  than 
what  they  supposed  we  wanted  to  hear  ?  When  we 
hear  them  or  read  them,  instead  of  breathing  the  pure 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


III 


mountain  air  of  insight  and  inspiration,  we  are  con¬ 
scious  of  the  sweet  but  sickly  breath  of  marshes  and 
stagnant  waters.  There  are  critics,  there  are  orators, 
whose  tongues,  like  whips  of  scorpions,  have  lashed  our 
national  weaknesses  and  sins ;  but  they  have  struck  at 
their  peril,  and  obloquy,  contumely,  private  slander,  and 
public  indignation  have  been  the  thumb -screws,  the 
boots,  the  rack,  and  the  fagot  with  which  American 
public  opinion  has  punished  American  citizens  who,  ex¬ 
ercising  only  their  constitutional  rights,  have  honestly 
said  what  they  honestly  thought. 

In  a  system  like  ours,  where  almost  every  man  has 
a  vote  and  votes  as  he  chooses,  public  opinion  is  really 
the  government.  Whoever  panders  to  it  is  training  a 
tyrant  for  our  master.  Whoever  enlightens  it  lifts  peo¬ 
ple  towards  peace  and  prosperity.  But  there  is  no 
method  of  enlightening  it  but  the  freest  discussion. 

£ Stop  the  mouth  and  you  stop  civilization.  Chain  down 
every  human  right,  but  leave  the  right  of  speech  free, 
and  it  will  presently  unchain  all  the  resfTj 

And  here  let  me  say  a  word  to  avoidlTpossible  misap¬ 
prehension.  We  are  engaged  in  a  formidable  and  threat¬ 
ening  struggle  for  the  defence  of  the  very  existence  of 
civil  order,  without  which  there  can  be  no  secure  en¬ 
joyment  of  any  right  whatever,  and  for  the  maintenance 
of  a  government  which  by  its  lawful  operation  secures 
more  justice,  more  liberty,  more  prosperity,  and  a  more 
equal  chance  than  could  be  hoped  for  from  any  other 
conceivable  form.  For  the  rescue  and  preservation  of 
that  government  we  stand  in  arms.  And  when  we  ac¬ 
cepted  war,  we  accepted  the  conditions  of  war.  When 


1 12 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


the  rebellion  announced  itself  at  Sumter,  there  were  but 
two  methods  open  to  us.  One  was  to  yield  to  it  and 
avoid  war  by  surrender  and  destruction  of  the  govern¬ 
ment;  the  other  was  to  take  up  arms.  Instinctively  the 
nation  chose  war,  and  that  choice  was  the  earnest  of 
its  triumph.  But  war  is  totally  inconsistent  with  the 
unrestricted  enjoyment  of  personal  and  political  rights. 
However  consecrated,  however  inevitable,  war  secures 
its  ends  by  brute  force.  It  must  have  unity  of  senti¬ 
ment  or,  that  being  impossible,  it  must  disembarrass  it¬ 
self  of  criticism  which  would  be  armed  opposition  if  it 
dared.  When,  therefore,  battle  begins,  debate  ends,  be¬ 
cause  then  words  are  things.  Whoever  helps  the  ene¬ 
my  by  his  tongue  or  his  hand  necessarily  does  it  at  his 
peril.  “  Why/’  wrote  Washington  to  Governor  Trum¬ 
bull  of  Connecticut — “  why  should  persons  who  are  prey¬ 
ing  upon  the  vitals  of  their  country  be  suffered  to  stalk 
at  large,  whilst  we  know  they  will  do  us  every  mischief 
in  their  power?”  Therefore  when  war  is  unavoidable, 
and  holy  as  ours  is,  we  must  embrace  it  wholly  and 
heartily  for  the  sake  of  peace.  You  cannot  carry  the 
olive-branch  and  the  sword  together,  for  the  olive  will 
hide  the  sword,  or  the  sword  the  olive.  Whoever  takes 
the  sword  in  one  hand  and  the  olive-branch  in  the  other 
is  half-hearted  as  he  is  half -armed,  and  meets  half 
way  the  shameful  defeat  which  his  craven  soul  solicits. 
Whoever  means  war — and  no  one  else  has  a  right  to 
make  war — takes  the  sword  in  both  hands,  hews  his  way 
to  perfect  victory,  and  then  covers  himself  all  over  with 
olive-branches.  War  willingly  accepted  is  the  willing  re¬ 
nunciation  of  rights  for  a  certain  time  and  for  a  particu- 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  113 

lar  purpose.  All  our  rights  are  threatened  by  this  re¬ 
bellion.  And  it  is  to  save  the  fundamental  guarantee 
of  them  all  that  some  are  temporarily  suspended,  as 
when  your  eyesight  is  threatened  you  assent  to  tempo¬ 
rary  darkness  in  order  to  escape  permanent  blindness. 

Do  we  ask  what  is  our  security  against  the  absolute  de¬ 
struction  of  those  rights  which  war  suspends?  Nothing 
but  the  character  and  intelligence  of  the  people.  In  our 
system  the  government  and  the  army  are  only  the  peo¬ 
ple.  And  it  is  by  popular  assent  alone  that  any  rights 
are  suspended.  The  people  in  the  Constitution  have 
clothed  the  President  in  time  of  war  with  almost  abso¬ 
lute  power.  And  well  for  us  in  this  solemn  hour  that 
they  are  given  to  one  who  unites  Washington’s  integrity 
to  the  democratic  faith  of  Jefferson;  whose  loyal  heart 
beats  true  to  the  heart  of  the  people ;  who  knows  that 
their  confidence  is  his  only  strength,  and  that  the  faster 
his  foot  and  the  heavier  his  hand,  the  quicker  and  surer 
is  the  safety  of  all  the  liberties  of  every  man  in  the  land.. 

But,  again,  our  doctrine  of  liberty  founds  equal  polit¬ 
ical  knowledge  upon  natural  human  equality,  and  ut¬ 
terly  repudiates  arbitrary  exclusion. 

Yet,  not  to  insist  upon  the  exception  of  the  sexes,, 
which  you  will  regard  as  visionary,  I  pass  to  another. 
It  is  not  only  sex  which  works  a  deprivation  of  acknowl¬ 
edged  right,  but  color  also.  If  you  commit  a  crime  you 
properly  lose  your  political  privileges.  But  if  you  are 
born  of  the  wrong  color  you  lose  them  also,  or  you  en¬ 
joy  them  upon  the  most  stringent  conditions.  There  is 
a  criminal  complexion  in  America.  If  a  man  is  born  of 
any  degree  of  duskiness,  the  American  assumption  is 
I.— 8 


1 14  THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 

that  he  is  an  ignorant,  degraded,  idle,  knavish  rascal ; 
and  the  assumption  is  founded  upon  the  fact  that  we 
have  done  our  best  to  make  him  so.  In  my  State  of 
New  York  the  most  industrious,  temperate,  intelligent, 
moral,  and  valuable  citizen,  if  he  be  of  the  criminal  com¬ 
plexion,  must  have  lived  three  times  as  long  in  the  State 
as  any  other  citizen,  and  must  have  paid  a  tax  that  no 
other  voter  pays,  before  he  can  enjoy  the  right  of  voting. 
It  is  the  sheerest  nonsense  to  assume  that  such  a  man 
is  a  bad  or  dangerous  or  incompetent  citizen  because 
he  is  not  a  white  man,  precisely  as  it  would  be  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  an  idle,  worthless  vagabond  is  a  safe  citizen 
because  he  is  a  white  man.  It  is  conceivable  that  free 
society  should  disfranchise  the  common  drunkards,  the 
hopelessly  idle  and  ignorant  and  brutal,  as  well  as  those 
who  have  no  respect  for  the  rights  of  man,  of  whatever 
race  or  color  they  might  be ;  but  to  proscribe  virtue,  in¬ 
telligence,  and  industry,  which  are  the  essential  guaran¬ 
tees  of  civilization,  because  of  the  color  of  the  man,  is 
as  reasonable  as  to  deny  men  the  rights  of  citizenship 
because  they  have  red  hair  or  squint  or  wear  square- 
toed  shoes.  Such  a  practice  founds  political  liberty 
upon  accident  or  incident,  which  have  no  moral  charac¬ 
ter  whatever,  instead  of  grounding  it  upon  natural  hu¬ 
man  right.  But  we  enjoy  all  our  natural  rights,  not 
because  we  are  of  the  Semitic  or  non-Semitic  families, 
not  because  we  are  Caucasians  or  Mongolians,  not  be¬ 
cause  we  are  Saxons  or  Celts,  but  because  we  are  men. 
The  difference  of  race  has  no  more  to  do  with  right 
than  the  difference  of  height  or  strength.  The  moment 
we  begin  with  any  arbitrary  exclusion  we  are  drifting 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  115 

straight  into  despotism.  If  we  may  deny  a  man’s  rights 
because  he  is  of  a  certain  color,  we  may  equally  deny 
them  because  he  is  of  a  certain  race  or  country  or  re¬ 
ligion  or  profession. 

And  we  shall  do  so,  for  injustice  breeds  injustice. 
The  habitual  denial  of  personal  liberty  to  some  per¬ 
sons  of  a  certain  color  in  this  country,  and  of  practical 
political  liberty  to  the  rest  of  the  race,  has  naturally 
smoothed  the  way  to  other  more  dangerous  invasions 
of  the  American  doctrine.  A  few  years  since  I  met  a 
farmer  in  the  cars  in  Indiana,  who  forcibly  expressed 
his  policy  by  saying  that  he  wished  every  darned  negro 
in  the  country  would  kill  a  darned  Paddy,  and  then  be 
hung  for  it.  We  laugh  at  the  extravagance  of  the  prop¬ 
osition,  but  we  have  recently  witnessed  the  career  of  a 
party  which  virtually  aimed  to  carry  out  this  ludicrous 
scheme ;  not,  indeed,  by  hanging,  but  by  disfranchise¬ 
ment.  Its  object  was  to  leave  those  who  were  already 
deprived  of  personal  liberty  to  their  fate,  and  to  restrict 
political  liberty  to  men  of  a  certain  color  who  were 
born  in  the  country  and  were  generally  of  one  relig¬ 
ious  faith.  Our  doctrine  of  liberty  was  already  denied 
in  the  case  of  colored  men.  This  new  party  proposed 
to  add  to  that  denial  those  of  foreign  birth,  aiming 
especially  at  the  Irishmen,  who  were  the  chief  emi¬ 
grants  from  foreign  lands,  and  who  were  mostly  of  one 
church.  It  was  simply  a  proposition  of  national  suicide, 
for  it  sought  to  create  a  most  dangerous,  because  an 
immense,  disfranchised  body  of  citizens.  With  uncon¬ 
scious  humor  it  adopted  the  dark-lantern  of  the  mid¬ 
night  thief  as  its  symbol.  With  an  infallible  and  un- 


Il6  THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 

suspected  satire,  the  popular  instinct  dubbed  it  Know- 
Nothing,  while  this  most  peculiarly  un-American  of 
our  political  parties  completed  its  comedy  by  soberly 
claiming  to  be  distinctively  American.  But  it  is  a  hap¬ 
py  fact  for  any  man  who  believes  that  political  liberty 
is  based  upon  the  rights  of  all  men  and  not  upon  the 
whims  of  some,  that  its  career  was  the  shortest  of  any 
party  in  our  history. 

But  our  late  history  shows  us  a  far  more  dangerous, 
because  more  subtle  and  specious,  denial  of  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  liberty — a  denial  which  one  of  the  nimblest  and 
most  adroit  of  our  modern  politicians  thought  to  be  the 
surest  trap  to  catch  the  Presidency.  Mr.  Douglas,  who 
had  a  frenzy  to  be  President,  who  had  watched  very 
closely  the  current  of  political  sentiment  in  the  coun¬ 
try,  was  persuaded  that  the  long  habit  of  indifference 
to  human  rights  had  deadened  the  sense  of  justice  in 
the  national  mind.  He  was  not  a  thoughtful  scholar, 
and  therefore  did  not  know  from  the  experience  of  all 
history  that  there  is  no  law  more  absolute  than  the 
eternal  restoration  of  the  moral  balance  of  the  world 
by  the  vindication  of  justice.  Nor  had  his  wide  and 

familiar  intercourse  with  the  most  demoralized  and  de- 

• 

graded  political  epoch  in  our  history  supplied  that  nec¬ 
essary  knowledge.  Pie  was  the  representative  politi¬ 
cian  of  an  era  which  had  apparently  lost  all  faith  in 
ideas.  His  favorite  dogma  was  the  most  satirical  in¬ 
sult  to  the  American  people,  for  it  implied  that  their 
ignorant  enthusiasm  would  honor  him  most  who  most 
cunningly  denied  the  most  cardinal  principle  of  their 
national  life.  Apparently  his  dogma  was  the  simple 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  117 

assertion  of  the  right  of  the  majority  to  govern,  and 
nothing  could  be  fairer  than  that.  This  is  a  democratic 
country,  he  said;  the  majority  rules.  Unhappily,  we 
quarrel  about  slavery  in  the  territories.  Very  well;  let 
us  settle  the  question  by  applying  the  fundamental  rule. 
Let  the  majority  decide.  Let  the  majority  of  people  in 
the  territory  say  whether  they  will  have  slaves.  What 
can  be  fairer?  cried  Mr.  Douglas,  leering  at  the  country. 
What  can  be  fairer?  echoed  a  thousand  caucuses.  The 
manner  was  blandishing.  The  sophism  was  sparkling. 
It  was  a  champagne  that  bubbled  and  whirled  in  the 
popular  brain,  until  many  a  wise  man  feared  that  the 
conscience  and  common-sense  of  the  nation  were  wholly 
drugged.  It  was  the  doctrine  of  the  sheerest  moral  indif¬ 
ference.  “  Liberty,  human  rights,  they  are  only  names,” 
he  said,  and  with  a  frightful  composure  and  utter  moral 
confusion  he  added,  “  I  take  the  part  of  the  white  man 
against  the  black,  and  of  the  black  man  against  the 
alligator.”  I  am  neither  for  slavery  nor  liberty,  he  said. 
I  don’t  care  which.  But  the  nation,  after  all,  was  not 
drugged  ;  it  did  care.  Its  interest,  if  not  its  conscience, 
was  alarmed.  His  jovial  reference  of  the  rights  of  hu¬ 
man  nature  to  the  whim  or  hatred  or  supposed  interest 
of  a  majority  was  overborne  by  the  refusal  to  leave 
them  even  to  a  majority.  The  two  great  parties  of  the 
country  rallied  around  the  essential  principle  involved. 
It  was  at  once  a  question  of  liberty  and  of  despotism. 
The  parties  were  in  earnest.  Yet  he  could  not  be  in 
earnest,  for  he  was  only  playing  for  the  Presidency. 
“  ‘  The  mills  of  God  ’ ! — there  are  no  mills  of  God,”  he 
smiled  and  said ;  and  instantly  he  was  caught  up  and 


Il8  THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 

politically  ground  to  powder  between  the  whirring  mill¬ 
stones  of  liberty  and  slavery. 

I  have  called  the  principle  dangerous.  But  we  can¬ 
not  exaggerate  its  danger.  It  is  a  poison  which  works 
still  in  our  political  system,  and  it  is  as  fatal  to  human 
liberty  as  it  is  repugnant  to  the  spirit  of  our  govern¬ 
ment  and  to  the  generous  instincts  of  enlightened  men, 
for  it  is  the  absolute  denial  of  the  American  postulate 
of  the  equal  and  inherent  rights  of  man  and  that  gov¬ 
ernments  exist  to  secure  these  rights.  It  places  the 
life,  liberty,  property,  and  welfare  of  every  citizen,  what¬ 
ever  his  complexion  or  race  or  nationality,  at  the 
mercy  of  a  majority.  It  was  asserted,  indeed,  of  a  Ter¬ 
ritory  ;  but  if  it  be  tolerable  doctrine  anywhere  in  the 
land  that  the  majority  can  rightfully  dispose  of  the  lib¬ 
erty  and  other  rights  of  a  minority  or  of  a  single  inno¬ 
cent  man,  then  it  is  tolerable  anywhere ;  in  this  State, 
for  instance.  And  if,  acting  in  due  legal  form,  a  major¬ 
ity  should  decide  that  the  blind  men  should  be  hung, 
the  crime  would  be  strictly  justified  by  this  principle. 
“Oh,  no,”  you  say;  “the  State  Constitution  secures 
life  and  liberty  except  for  crime.”  Yes,  but  why  does 
it  secure  them  ?  Simply  because  you  have  a  right  to 
your  life  and  your  liberty,  which  God,  not  the  Constitu¬ 
tion,  gave  you.  The  majority  may  refuse  to  allow  you 
the  exercise  of  that  right,  for  a  thousand  Neros  are 
more  powerful  than  one  Nero.  They  may  express 
their  refusal  as  law,  and  enforce  it  by  the  bayonet ; 
as,  a  hundred  years  ago,  it  was  the  English  law  in  Ire¬ 
land  that  if  a  son  informed  against  his  father  as  a  Pa¬ 
pist,  the  father’s  property  should  be  given  to  the  son ; 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY  119 

and  as,  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  in  Judea,  it  was  the 
law  of  Herod  that  all  children  under  two  years  of  age 
should  be  murdered.  What  then?  Would  it  be  right, 
justifiable,  humane?  Would  any  heart  that  was  not 
black  with  passion,  or  mind  that  was  not  utterly  seared 
with  sophistry,  excuse  it  for  a  moment?  No;  the  hu¬ 
man  instinct  repels  and  scorns  the  plea.  It  is  the  rule 
of  the  King  of  Dahomey,  of  the  pirate -ship,  of  the 
slave- market.  Against  the  American  doctrine  of  lib¬ 
erty  it  is  the  very  unpardonable  sin ;  and  it  is  a  happy 
augury  that  the  effort  to  make  it  the  creed  of  what  was 
called  the  Democratic  party  in  this  country  shivered 
and  annihilated  that  party  by  driving  from  it  all  the  ad¬ 
herents  of  the  great,  true,  universal  democratic  party  of 
all  times  and  of  all  countries,  which  eternally  maintains 
that  men  as  well  as  majorities  have  rights. 

The  tendency  of  all  men  and  societies  is  to  disregard 
moral  principles  as  something  too  visionary,  too  ab¬ 
stract  and  impracticable,  for  working-men  and  actual 
life.  But  it  is  as  sure  as  sunrise  that  men  and  nations, 
either  in  their  own  lives  and  characters  or  in  those  of 
their  descendants,  will  pay  the  penalty  of  injustice  and 
immorality.  For  injustice  breeds  ignorance,  supersti¬ 
tion,  bestiality,  barbarism,  and  the  conflict  of  passions ; 
while  justice  fosters  intelligence,  industry,  mutual  re¬ 
spect,  peace,  and  good-will.  We  have  not  believed  it, 
but  the  loss  of  our  nationality  will  be  the  cost  of  our 
further  disbelief.  In  all  the  history  of  civilization  there 
is  no  spectacle  so  humiliating  as  the  conduct  of  this  na¬ 
tion  towards  one  unhappy  race.  Their  only  offence  is 
that  we  have  injured  them.  The  only  excuse  that  we 


120 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


urge  is  that  they  submit.  At  the  South  a  servile  peo¬ 
ple,  often  degraded  almost  out  of  humanity,  they  are 
treated  with  the  same  familiarity  as  the  Arab  treats 
his  horse,  but  with  more  contempt-  At  the  North,  of 
insignificant  numbers,  they  are  held  in  the  pitiful  scorn 
that  paralyzes  energy  and  hope.  Well,  they  did  not 
wish  to  be  here.  They  are  not  a  nomadic  race;  they 
would  never  have  come  if  they  had  not  been  stolen  for 
our  profit.  Do  we  say  that  they  show  no  desire  of 
liberty,  that  we  could  respect  their  manhood  if  they 
would  only  rise  and  cut  their  masters’  throats,  but  that 
their  tame  subordination  to  slavery  proves  them  fit  only 
to  be  slaves?  True,  if  these  four  millions  were  of  a  less 
mild  and  flexible  race,  then,  as  the  Syrian  slaves  of 
Rome  closed  in  a  death  -  grapple  with  the  empire,  nor 
relaxed  their  hold  until  a  million  lives  were  lost,  so 
these  slaves  would  long  ago  have  hewn  their  way  to 
freedom,  or  in  blind  despair  the  tortured  Samson  would 
have  grasped  the  columns  of  the  social  temple  and 
have  dragged  it  down  in  direful  ruin.  But  since  this 
was  not  to  be,  since  they  are  so  soft  and  hopeless  and 
submissive  a  race,  we  have  believed  that  justice  had  no 
remedy,  and  that  a  race  which  could  not  help  itself 
would  be  forever  unavenged.  For  many  a  blithe  year 
we  haughty  children  of  the  Saxon  race  had  seen  our 
borders  enlarging,  our  population  increasing,  our  States 
multiplying,  our  churches  and  schools  and  warehouses 
and  railways  and  ships  and  telegraphs  rising  and  swarm¬ 
ing  on  every  hand ;  had  seen  the  whole  continent  shin¬ 
ing  with  our  splendid  statistics;  and  in  all  the  glittering 
years  we  had  not  felt  the  cotton  harsh  to  the  touch  nor 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


I  2  I 


the  sugar  bitter  to  the  taste,  though  we  knew  that 
all  that  softness  and  sweetness  grew  in  the  ruin  of  a 
race.  Our  very  birth-throe  was  justice,  and  we  were 
unjust.  Our  very  breath  was  human  rights,  and ,  we 
destroyed  them.  Our  very  life  was  liberty,  and  we  de¬ 
nied  it.  Like  Belshazzar,  the  nation  sat  feasting,  and 
if  for  evanescent  moments  it  saw  the  awful  words  upon 
the  wall,  the  feast  was  so  splendid  that  its  eyes  were 
dazzled.  We  sought  excuses  and  evasions.  It  was  a 
State  matter,  a  local  law,  an  institution  doomed  to  per¬ 
ish  before  our  progress.  It  was  a  pity — yes,  it  was  a 
pity,  but  don’t  talk  about  it.  Justice,  liberty,  human 
rights — yes,  yes ;  but  the  thing  is  so  complicated,  and 
rights  are  so  dim  and  shadowy,  and  gold  is  so  bright 
and  hard  and  doubles  itself  every  year.  And  we 
sighed  and  smiled  and  sighed  again.  It  is  a  State 
matter,  a  local  law,  a  system  doomed  to  perish  —  and 
even  while  we  spoke  it  suddenly  towered  before  us  a 
hideous,  overpowering  presence,  like  the  genie  before 
the  fisherman,  kicked  the  casket  of  compromise  and 
restraint  into  the  sea,  insolently  declared  itself  the  su¬ 
preme  lord  of  the  land,  and  the  doctrine  of  liberty  a 
treasonable  lie. 

We  could  be  unjust,  we  thought,  for  if  these  slaves 
were  men  they  would  revenge  themselves.  Well,  they 
have  not  grasped  the  sword,  but  how  awful  is  their 
vengeance !  They  sit  dismayed  and  uncertain  while 
civil  war  shakes  its  fiery  torch  across  the  land,  drop¬ 
ping  blood  in  its  hideous  path,  stabbing  wives,  moth¬ 
ers,  sisters,  lovers,  to  the  heart ;  dragging  our  young, 
our  brave,  our  beautiful  down  to  ghastly  death ;  while 


122 


THE  AMERICAN  DOCTRINE  OF  LIBERTY 


through  the  fiery  storm  of  wrath  the  voice  of  God 
cries  to  our  shrinking  hearts,  as  to  cowering  Cain  in  the 
Garden,  “  Where  is  Abel,  where  is  Abel,  thy  brother?” 

Gentlemen,  by  the  lurid  light  of  this  war  we  can  read 
our  duty  very  plainly.  We  are  to  remember  that  in 
every  free  nation  the  public  safety  and  progress  re¬ 
quire  a  double  allegiance — to  the  form  and  to  the  spirit 
of  the  government.  By  forgetting  the  spirit  of  our 
own,  we  have  imperilled  both  its  form  and  its  existence. 
Therefore,  by  the  sublime  possibility  of  the  great  com¬ 
monwealth  made  to  be  an  intelligent,  industrious,  and 
free  people ;  conscious  of  our  power  against  harm  from 
within  and  without ;  by  distance  and  character  removed 
from  foreign  ambition,  by  watchful  intelligence  from 
domestic  division ;  with  justice  as  the  bond  of  union  at 
home  and  the  pledge  of  respect  abroad ;  by  the  warm 
blood  of  our  best  and  dearest  gushing  at  this  moment 
for  this  faith — let  us  vow,  with  the  majesty  of  millions 
of  consenting  hearts  and  voices,  that  we  will  never 
again,  God  helping  us,  forget  that  the  cause  of  the 
United  States  is  the  cause  of  human  nature,  and  that 
the  permanent  life  of  the  nation  is  the  liberty  of  all 
its  children. 


V 

POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 

A  LECTURE 


\ 


MARCH,  1864 


The  following  lecture  was  delivered  more  than  fifty  times  in 
the  course  of  1864  and  1865,  in  different  States,  from  Maine  to 
Maryland. 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


After  the  passionate  heats  and  storms  of  summer 
the  harvest  is  reaped  in  the  field,  and  the  fruit  upon  the 
trees  is  ripe.  So,  after  the  Revolutionary  throes  in  which 
this  nation  was  born,  after  the  fierce  political  struggle 
of  its  youth  ending  in  sanguinary  war,  after  doubt  and 
darkness  and  despair  almost,  every  generous  American 
heart  is  inclined  to  believe  that  its  faith  is  becoming 
sight,  and  that  the  golden  gates  of  the  future  are  about 
to  open  and  reveal  to  us  our  whole  country,  truly 
united,  truly  prosperous,  truly  free,  and  therefore  truly 
at  peace. 

But  all  speculation  upon  peace  and  union  is  useless 
until  we  have  settled  one  preliminary  question,  and  that 
is,  whether  the  war  proves  that,  however  faithful  to  our 
principles  we  may  be,  still  a  free,  popular  government 
must  necessarily  fail ;  or  whether  it  shows,  not  that  our 
principles  are  impracticable,  but  that  in  the  past  we  have 
been  unfaithful  to  them. 

For,  if  the  war  be  the  result  of  our  Political  Infidel¬ 
ity ;  if  we  have  suffered  our  plain  fundamental  principles 
to  be  disregarded  and  denied  until  the  disregard  became 
haughty  contempt  and  the  denial  bloody  rebellion ; 


126 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


then  it  is  not  the  popular  system,  but  we,  who  failed, 
and  union  and  peace  are  possible  only  by  our  returning 
fidelity  to  our  principles. 

Now,  the  spring  of  our  government,  as  of  every  free 
popular  government,  is  public  opinion,  and  the  country 
is  really  governed  by  those  who  direct  that.  This  is 
what  Fletcher  of  Saltoun  meant  in  saying  that  if  he 
could  make  the  songs  of  a  people,  whoever  would  might 
make  the  laws.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the  saying  that 
the  song  of  Lillibullero  drove  James  II.  out  of  the  three 
kingdoms.  When  an  idea  is  so  familiar  and  precious 
to  a  people  that  they  sing  it,  the  government  must  con¬ 
form,  or  the  government  will  come  down,  like  the  walls 
of  Jericho  before  the  blast  of  the  ram’s  horn.  Thus  it 
was  that  in  the  year  1840,  when  singing  was  first  intro¬ 
duced  into  our  political  meetings,  there  was  universal 
discontent  with  the  state  of  public  affairs.  That  dis¬ 
content  needed  no  argument.  It  expressed  itself  in  a 
song,  a  President  was  sung  straight  out  of  office,  and 
“Van,  Van,  was  a  used-up  man.” 

Earl  Russell,  replying  a  year  since  at  Blairgowrie 
to  Mr.  Sumner’s  speech  upon  our  foreign  relations, 
sneers  at  us  and  misrepresents  us ;  but  his  lordship  ac¬ 
knowledges  that  the  British  government  will  still  be 
neutral — and  why?  Because,  he  says,  the  majority  of 
the  British  people  sympathize  with  the  government  of 
the  United  States.  He  does  not  say  a  majority  of  the 
governing  class  represented  in  Parliament,  but  of  the 
unrepresented  British  people  whose  opinion  governs  the 
governing  class. 

Thus  it  is  that  public  opinion,  good  or  bad,  is  really 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


127 


the  law — under  the  forms  or  over  them.  Demoralize  it, 
therefore,  and  you  degrade  the  government,  so  that  un¬ 
der  the  name  and  form  of  a  popular  republic  you  have 
the  most  terrible  despotism  and  the  worst  of  tyrannies. 

If,  then,  public  opinion  be  so  transcendently  power¬ 
ful,  the  cardinal  principle  of  a  free  government  is  that, 
in  time  of  peace,  there  shall  be  no  interference  with 
its  instruction.  Absolute  freedom  of  speech  is  the 
test  of  political  fidelity  in  a  free  government.  Have 
we  satisfied  that  test?  Was  De  Tocqueville  wrong, 
thirty  years  ago,  when  he  said  that  in  America  the 
majority  coerced  debate?  Does  our  political  history, 
ending  with  the  shot  at  Sumter,  show  that  we  have 
jealously  guarded  the  right  of  free  discussion?  If  we 
have  everywhere  in  this  country  sought  and  tolerated 
the  most  searching  debate  of  public  questions;  if  from 
every  platform  and  stump,  from  every  pulpit  and  press, 
in  the  remotest  corner  of  the  land,  there  has  been  for 
the  last  eighty  years  a  full,  frank,  and  perfectly  free  dis¬ 
cussion  of  public  differences,  and  the  voting  has  been 
as  free  and  honest  as  the  talking — then  our  system  has 
failed  ;  then  the  war  is  not  the  consequence  of  our  polit¬ 
ical  infidelity,  but  springs  from  causes  that  make  our 
nationality  impossible. 

What,  then,  is  the  truth?  What  says  history? 

Fifty-two  years  ago  an  erect  and  nervous  figure  darted 
into  the  arena  of  our  politics  with  a  shrill  cry  for  war 
with  England,  and  there  remained  conspicuous  until 
twelve  years  since,  when,  with  the  cry,  Delenda  est 
Roma — the  nation  must  be  destroyed — he  disappeared 
from  human  eyes  forever. 


128 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


Calhoun  was  the  apostle  of  the  Southern  Policy,  which 
was  to  secure  the  permanent  political  predominance  of 
the  Southern  section  of  the  country.  The  social  system 
of  that  section  was  an  aristocracy  founded  upon  human 
slavery.  Therefore  he  truly  said,  “We  are  essentially 
aristocratic.”  Therefore  his  most  accomplished  disciple, 
Jefferson  Davis,  says,  “We  seceded  to  rid  ourselves  of 
the  rule  of  the  majority.”  The  political  problem  of  the 
Southern  Policy,  therefore,  was  twofold.  First,  in  a  free, 
popular  government  to  maintain  an  aristocracy ;  second, 
in  a  system  sprung  from  equal  rights  and  fair  play  for 
all  men,  to  extend  and  perpetuate  slavery.  There  was 
but  one  way  to  do  it.  Knowing  that  the  instincts  of 
the  American  people,  at  once  intelligent,  prosperous, 
and  free,  were  both  generous  and  noble,  and  that  frank 
discussion  constantly  tended  to  humanize  and  elevate 
the  public  opinion  which  truly  governed  the  country, 
Mr.  Calhoun  saw  that  the  only  safety  and  success  of 
the  Southern  Policy  lay  in  the  demoralization  of  the 
national  character.  And  to  this  tremendous  and  ter¬ 
rible  task  he  devoted  his  life. 

Gathering  all  his  forces  he  intrenched  himself  upon 
State  Rights,  upon  the  timidity  of  trade,  upon  the  dull 
despotism  of  party  spirit,  and  upon  the  jealousy  of  race  ; 
and  opened  fire  all  along  the  line  upon  the  fidelity  of 
the  American  people.  His  purpose  was  to  silence  de¬ 
bate.  If  he  could  do  that  his  victory  was  sure.  He 
knew  that  if  he  destroyed  the  tap-root  the  tree  must 
fall.  He  knew  that  if  he  poisoned  the  fountain  the  river 
would  be  a  stream  of  death.  His  brain  was  the  huge 
reservoir  of  rebellion,  and  all  the  floods  of  theories, 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


I29 


arguments,  and  appeals  which  have  reared  and  rattled 
in  the  speeches  of  the  Southern  leaders  and  their 
Northern  allies  until  they  overflowed  in  civil  war,  are 
merely  the  few  false  principles  of  Calhoun  filtered 
through  baser  minds  and  mouths. 

How  then  did  the  plan  of  national  demoralization 
prosper  ?  Do  you  think  it  was  too  stupendous,  too 
hopeless  ?  Do  you  think  that  human  slavery  is  so 
obviously  wrong,  and  exclusive  political  power  in  a 
republic,  founded  upon  injustice,  is  so  manifestly  ab¬ 
surd,  that  the  popular  instinct  will  indignantly  sweep 
away  a  policy  that  depends  upon  them  ? 

So  long  as  people  said,  “  Oh,  yes,  slavery  is  a  very 
bad  thing ;  but  there  is  nothing  to  be  done  about  it, 
you  know,”  the  Southern  Policy  smiled  politely  and 
worked  diligently  at  its  web  in  which  the  country 
was  entangled.  But  when  a  few  other  people  said, 
“Yes,  slavery  is  a  very  bad  thing,  and  will  destroy 
the  nation  if  the  nation  does  not  destroy  it,”  Mr.  Cal¬ 
houn  knew  that  the  open  battle  was  at  hand.  He 
sprang  to  his  feet.  “What  does  it  mean?”  asked 
he,  the  representative  man  of  the  South,  of  Mr.  Web¬ 
ster,  the  representative  of  the  North.  “  Nothing,  noth¬ 
ing  ;  a  rub  -  a  -  dub  agitation.  A  glass  of  wine  with 
you,  Mr.  Calhoun.”  A  rub-a-dub  agitation!  Oh,  yes, 
so  it  was.  It  was  the  beating  of  the  roll-call  at 
midnight.  The  camp  slept  no  more ;  and  morning 
breaks  at  last  in  the  storm  of  a  war  that  shakes  the 
world. 

The  passionate  chapter  in  our  history  known  as  the 
Abolition  Agitation  is  the  story  of  the  vindication  of 
1—9 


130 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


free  speech  in  the  United  States.  The  abolitionists 
asked  only  to  be  allowed  their  Constitutional  rights  of 
speech.  Could  American  citizens  ask  less  ?  What  was 
the  whole  force  of  the  government  for  but  to  protect 
Mr.  Wendell  Phillips  discussing  slavery  in  New  Orleans, 
as  it  protected  Mr.  Robert  Toombs  discussing  slavery  in 
Boston?  Was  John  C.  Calhoun  more  an  American  citi¬ 
zen  than  William  Lloyd  Garrison?  American  citizens 
may  hold  and  express  what  views  they  will,  and  the 
moment  the  antislavery  men  were  mobbed  for  the  ex¬ 
pression  of  opinion  their  meetings  became  the  citadel 
of  the  American  union  and  government.  Not  in  No¬ 
vember,  1837,  when  Elijah  Lovejoy  was  shot  dead  in 
Illinois  for  exercising  his  plainest  right  as  I  am  doing 
now;  not  in  October,  1835,  when  Garrison  was  mobbed 
in  Boston  for  saying  that  slavery  was  wrong ;  but  in 
October,  1833 — when  in  the  city  of  New  York  a  body 
of  men  met  at  Tammany  Hall  in  response  to  an  in¬ 
vitation  signed  “  Many  Southrons,”  and,  marching  to 
the  Chatham  Street  chapel  to  rout  a  peaceful  meeting 
for  discussion,  marched  against  the  rights  of  every 
American  citizen,  against  the  Union  and  the  govern¬ 
ment — from  that  moment  the  cause  of  the  abolitionist 
was  the  cause  of  America. 

The  fight  was  desperate,  and  the  Southern  Policy, 
already  firmly  intrenched,  seemed  to  conquer.  The 
Church,  the  college,  trade,  fashion,  the  vast  political 
parties,  took  Calhoun’s  side  against  popular  govern¬ 
ment,  and  sneered,  frowned,  and  raged  at  its  defenders. 
Remember,  I  am  not  now  considering  the  wisdom  or 
taste  of  the  abolition  method  with  regard  to  the  spe- 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY  I31 

cific  end  of  emancipation,  but  only  with  regard  to  the 
fundamental  right  of  free  speech.  In  Boston,  in  Phila¬ 
delphia,  in  New  York,  in  Utica,  in  New  Haven,  and  in 
a  hundred  villages,  when  an  American  citizen  proposed 
to  say  what  he  thought  of  a  great  public  question — 
for  this  was  all  he  asked  —  he  was  insulted,  mobbed, 
chased,  and  maltreated.  Lovejoy  was  shot  at  Alton — 
as  much  a  martyr  as  Nathan  Hale  in  the  Revolution — 
and  the  country  scowled  and  muttered  angrily,  “  Served 
him  right.”  Grand  juries  presented  citizens  who  in  time 
of  peace  wished  to  discuss  public  topics  as  guilty  of 
sedition.  The  legislatures  were  called  upon  to  make 
their  speeches  indictable  offences.  In  the  Legislature 
of  Rhode  Island,  in  February,  1836,  such  a  bill  was  re¬ 
ported.  The  Governor  of  New  York  favored  such  a 
bill.  The  Governor  of  Ohio  actually  delivered  a  citizen 
of  that  State  to  the  demand  of  Kentucky,  to  be  tried 
for  helping  a  slave  to  escape.  The  Governor  of  Massa¬ 
chusetts  said  that  all  discussion  of  the  subject  which 
tended  to  incite  insurrection  had  been  held  to  be  an 
indictable  offence.  Of  course  any  discussion  could  be 
so  interpreted,  and  the  governor  might  as  properly 
have  said  that  all  discussion  of  free  trade  tended  to 
an  insurrection  of  factory  operatives  and  must  be  sup¬ 
pressed  by  law.  The  most  eminent  civilians  of  every 
profession  denounced  the  agitation — that  is  to  say,  the 
open  discussion  of  a  public  question — as  treason  ;  and  at 
length  Amos  Kendal,  the  Postmaster-General  of  the 
-  United  States,  in  order  to  help  the  Southern  Policy  de¬ 
stroy  popular  government,  virtually  put  his  hands  into 
the  mails  and  robbed  them. 


1 32 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


These  were  public  facts.  In  private  life,  as  you  know, 
the  Planter  sat  at  Northern  tables,  and,  as  he  had  the 
right,  defended  the  imbruting  of  men  and  the  stealing  of 
their  wages,  the  whipping  of  women  and  the  selling  of 
children;  while  Northern  Politeness,  mincing,  muffled, 
timorous,  and  gagged,  smiled  blandly  and  passed  the 
bottle.  They  were  human  rights  that  were  destroyed. 
They  were  our  fundamental  principles  that  were  de¬ 
stroyed.  It  was  the  planting  of  snares  and  gins  and 
pitfalls  where  our  children  were  to  walk — and  Northern 
Politeness  smiled  blandly  and  passed  the  bottle. 

You  thought  the  task  of  national  demoralization  too 
stupendous.  But,  after  thirty  years  of  persistent,  un¬ 
scrupulous  effort  upon  the  part  of  the  Southern  Policy, 
what  were  its  prospects  ? 

The  statesman  who  among  the  public  men  of  Cal¬ 
houn’s  later  days  was  the  contrasting  figure  to  the  ar¬ 
dent  and  haughty  Carolinian,  Mr.  Seward  of  New  York, 
spoke  in  October,  1856,  at  Detroit.  His  speech  was 
called  “  The  Dominant  Class,”  and  our  national  condi¬ 
tion  was  described  with  the  utmost  detail  and  care. 
No  speech  was  ever  calmer  or  sadder.  I  remember 
reading  it  in  the  cars  on  a  still  autumn  day,  and  the 
bright  pageant  of  the  falling  year  gathered  a  melancholy 
significance  as  I  read.  For  what  was  the  picture  that 
the  orator  painted?  It  was  that  of  the  absolute  subju¬ 
gation  of  the  country  to  the  Southern  Policy.  Every 
great  office  of  State  was  then  and  long  had  been  held 
by  its  ministers.  The  American  foreign  ambassadors — 
who  are,  as  Americans,  ex  officio ,  the  representatives  of 
human  rights,  were  everywhere  silent  or  were  the  smooth 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


133 


apologists  of  that  policy;  so  that  the  world  sneered  as 
it  listened,  and  laughed  at  a  republic  founded  upon  lib¬ 
erty  and  afraid  to  speak  the  word  at  home.  The  same 
policy  was  served  by  every  Committee  in  Congress,  and 
when  the  Vice-President  of  the  United  States,  who 
was  its  servant  in  the  Senate,  left  his  seat  there,  it 
was  filled  by  another  like  himself,  while  all  the  attend¬ 
ants  who  stood  around  him,  the  doorkeepers,  messen¬ 
gers,  sergeants  -  at  -  arms,  down  to  the  very  pages  who 
noiselessly  skimmed  the  floor,  were  passive  tools  of  the 
dominant  spirit.  The  speech  showed  that  beyond  the 
superb  walls  of  the  Capitol — which  Senator  Benton  had 
long  solemnly  warned  the  country  was  built  by  the 
consent  of  the  Southern  leaders  only  that  they  might 
seize  and  occupy  it  when  the  time  came — the  whole  vast 
system  of  national  offices  was  but  a  huge  fortification  of 
the  Southern  Policy;  that  every  little  post-office  and 

custom-house  berth  in  the  land  was  a  loop-hole  whence 

% 

the  whole  field  could  be  surveyed  and  a  shot  fired  at  the 
very  heart  of  the  American  doctrine  of  liberty ;  and,  to 
crown  all,  that  the  most  absolute  subservience  to  that 
policy  was  decreed  as  the  test  of  nationality ;  while  its 
leaders  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  with  taunt  and  sneer 
that  any  serious  effort  of  the  country,  however  lawfully 
made,  to  change  that  policy,  would  strike  the  tocsin  of 
civil  war.  We  lived  under  a  threat.  We  cowered  under 
the  crack  of  the  whip.  And  what  we  called  our  Union¬ 
saving  policy  was  submission  to  the  holders  of  the  whip 
lest  we  should  feel  it  upon  our  backs. 

Such  was  the  fearful  picture  that  the  orator  painted. 
Was  the  picture  true?  While  we  ask,  another  witness 


*34 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


rises  in  the  extremest  South  to  confirm  the  testimony 
of  the  Northern  statesman.  You  would  not  believe  Mr. 
Seward,  perhaps,  because  he  was  out  of  power  and  might 
paint  black  for  a  partisan  purpose.  Will  you,  then, 
believe  Alexander  H.  Stephens  of  Georgia,  who  paint¬ 
ed  precisely  the  same  picture,  but  in  the  brightest  col¬ 
ors?  In  the  summer  of  1859  comes  home  from  Con¬ 
gress  to  his  friends  and  neighbors,  and  tells  them  why 
he  is  going  to  retire  from  public  life.  Does  some  good 
soul  imagine,  or  did  it  when  the  Rebellion  began,  that 
Mr.  Stephens  was  a  Union  man?  Mr.  Seward’s  words 
are  in  your  ears ;  listen  to  Mr.  Stephens  in  the  summer 
sunshine  six  years  ago :  “  As  matters  now  stand,  so  far 
as  the  sectional  questions  are  concerned  I  see  no  cause 
of  danger  either  to  the  Union  or  to  Southern  security 
in  it.  The  former  has  always  been  to  me,  and  ought  to 
be  to  you,  subordinate  to  the  latter.”  “  There  is  not 
now  a  spot  of  the  public  territory  of  the  United  States 
over  which  the  national  flag  floats  where  slavery  is  ex¬ 
cluded  by  the  law  of  Congress,  and  the  highest  tribunal 
of  the  land  has  decided  that  Congress  has  no  power  to 
make  such  a  law.”  “  At  this  time  there  is  not  a  ripple 
upon  the  surface.  The  country  was  never  in  a  pro¬ 
founder  quiet.” 

Do  you  comprehend  the  terrible  significance  of  these 
words  ? 

He  stops;  he  sits  down.  The  summer  sun  sets  over 
the  fields  of  Georgia,  the  land  of  peace.  Good-night, 
Mr.  Stephens  —  a  long  good-night.  Look  from  your 
window  —  how  calm  it  is!  Upon  Missionary  Ridge, 
upon  Lookout  Mountain,  upon  the  heights  of  Dalton, 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


*35 


upon  the  spires  of  Atlanta,  silence  and  solitude ;  the 
peace  of  the  Southern  Policy  of  Slavery  and  Death. 
But  look !  hark !  Through  the  great  five  years  before 
you  a  light  is  shining — a  sound  is  ringing.  It  is  the 
gleam  of  Sherman’s  bayonets,  it  is  the  roar  of  Grant’s 
guns  ;  it  is  the  red  daybreak  and  wild  morning  music  of 
peace  indeed,  the  peace  of  National  Life  and  Liberty. 

These  two  speeches  of  the  Northern  and  the  Southern 
statesman  are  the  complements  of  each  other.  They  de¬ 
scribe  the  same  spectacle  from  different  points  of  view. 
At  Detroit,  Mr.  Seward  shows  us  how  the  nation,  like 
Gulliver,  is  bound  down  to  the  ground  by  each  sep¬ 
arate  single  hair.  Mr.  Stephens,  at  Augusta,  does  not 
tell  us  that  the  Gulliver  is  bound ,  indeed,  for  there  is  a 
choice  in  phrases ;  he  touches  him  with  his  foot  as  a 
sultan  touches  a  prostrate  slave,  smilingly,  and  says, 
“  See  how  still  he  lies ;  he  doesn’t  move  in  the  least.” 

Mr.  Stephens  bade  his  friends  good-night  and  laid 
himself  to  repose  upon  the  bed  of  private  life.  But  sud¬ 
denly  he  heard  the  fiery  apostle  Toombs  exclaim  to  the 
Georgia  Legislature  at  Milledgeville,  “  I  ask  you  to  give 
me  the  sword ;  for  if  you  do  not  give  it  to  me,  as  God 
lives  I  will  take  it  myself.” 

“  Stop,  stop,”  cried  Mr.  Stephens,  starting  up.  “  Is 
the  Southern  Policy,  safe  from  its  enemies,  now  to  be 
endangered  by  its  friends?  The  Union  has  always  been 
our  tool  with  which  we  have  shaped  our  prosperity. 
With  the  threat  of  disunion  we  have  always  scourged 
the  North  into  submission.  Don’t  fling  it  away  be¬ 
cause  for  the  moment  it  is  a  little  loose  in  the  handle. 
Wait  for  four  years.  We  have  the  House,  we  have  the 


1 36 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


Senate,  we  have  the  blessing  of  the  Supreme  Court ; 
our  revolution  can  be  peacefully  accomplished,  slavery 
will  become  the  corner-stone  of  the  Union,  the  South¬ 
ern  Policy  be  permanently  established,  and  the  per¬ 
turbed  spirit  of  Calhoun  have  rest.” 

This  was  Mr.  Stephens’s  celebrated  “Union”  speech 
— which  has  very  unjustly  earned  him  a  double  share  of 
infamy,  as  if  he  had  weakly  yielded  to  crime  with  his 
eyes  open.  But  if  he  had  the  least  taint  of  fidelity  to 
the  Union — except  as  the  tool  of  the  South — do  you 
suppose  he  would  have  been  made  second  to  Mr.  Davis 
in  the  hour  of  trial?  Would  the  Southern  leaders  ever 
have  made  Joseph  Holt  or  Andrew  Johnson  Vice-Pres¬ 
ident  of  their  Confederation?  No,  no.  They  are  men 
who  understand  their  game.  They  knew  what  they 
were  doing  when  they  made  Pierce  and  Buchanan  Pres¬ 
idents  of  the  United  States — nor  less  so  when,  in  their 
rebellion,  they  placed  Stephens  by  the  side  of  Davis. 
It  was  only  a  question  of  method  between  Mr.  Stephens 
and  the  other  leaders.  They  all  believed  that  the  coun¬ 
try  was  so  morally  rotten  that  it  would  consent  to  the 
most  fundamental  change  in  the  government,  though  it 
were  solely  for  the  benefit  of  human  slavery.  Mr.  Slidell, 
Mr.  Mason,  and  Mr.  Hunter  privately  said  in  Wash¬ 
ington  that  the  change  would  be  peaceably  effected. 
Mr.  Toombs,  with  gay  fierceness,  said  that  he  would 
agree  to  drink  all  the  blood  that  was  shed  in  the  war. 
“  If  then  you  are  so  sure  that  the  country  is  ripe,  why 
draw  the  sword  ?”  asked  Mr.  Stephens.  Merely  to  show 
the  blade  and  precipitate  the  result  by  terror,  was  the 
reply. 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


*37 


For  these  men  were  sure  all  signs  showed  that  the 
great  work  of  Calhoun  was  accomplished  and  that  of 
Washington  undone ;  that  to  avoid  war  the  country 
would  accept  any  alternative  however  shameful — and 
that  was  the  turning-point  of  our  history.  The  degrada¬ 
tion  which  the  Holy  Alliance  prepared  for  Europe  after 
the  Treaty  of  Vienna  was  not  so  fearful  as  that  which 
the  Southern  Policy  had  prepared  and  was  effecting  for 
this  country.  And  that  also  proceeded  by  an  alliance. 
As  the  ferocious  King  of  Naples,  in  1848,  made  the  laz- 
zaroni  his  allies,  appealing  to  every  mean  prejudice  and 
passion  of  ignorant  men,  so  the  Planting  aristocracy  of 
the  South  allied  itself  with  ignorance,  with  hatred  of 
race,  with  class  jealousy,  with  the  morbid  timidity  of 
trade,  in  order  to  secure  its  ascendency.  Aristocratic  in 
instinct,  by  necessity,  in  theory  and  practice,  the  South¬ 
ern  Policy  adopted  the  name  of  Democracy,  the  better 
to  annihilate  Democratic  principles,  and  down  to  i860 
had  succeeded  in  identifying  that  name  with  all  that 
was  most  anti-American  in  theory,  most  inhuman  and 
degrading  in  practice.  If,  in  the  interest  of  that  policy, 
the  right  of  speech  were  to  be  assailed,  if  the  sanctity 
of  the  ballot-box  were  to  be  invaded,  if  a  law  repugnant 
to  every  manly  instinct  were  to  be  enforced  in  blood, 
if  neighboring  nations  were  to  be  wronged  by  banditti 
and  pirates,  if  foreign  powers  were  to  be  defied  and  in¬ 
sulted — if  the  most  shameless  violations  of  the  Consti¬ 
tution  were  to  be  justified  and  supported,  if  elections 
were  to  be  carried  under  threat  of  war — it  was  always 
the  Southern  Policy  and  its  ministers  at  the  North  who 
stood  ready  stripped  for  the  work,  and  did  it  in  the 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


138 

name  of  the  Democracy.  It  was  Sheridan’s  joke  made 
terrible.  “  What  is  your  name  ?”  said  the  watchman  to 
Sheridan,  when  they  found  him  at  midnight  drunk  in 
the  gutter.  “  William  Wilberforce,”  the  wag  thickly  re¬ 
sponded.  “Who  are  you,”  cried  the  indignant  heart  of 
man,  “  that  outrage  human  nature  and  destroy  the  hope 
of  equal  liberty?”  “The  American  Democracy,”  was 
the  exquisitely  satirical  reply.  And  as  the  Southern  Pol¬ 
icy,  being  of  necessity  aristocratic,  used  the  word  de¬ 
mocracy  to  bring  popular  government  into  contempt, 
so  its  leaders,  being  disunionists  and  fanatics  of  State 
sovereignty,  professed  a  maudlin  respect  for  the  Union, 
and  being  of  all  Americans  sectional,  insisted  upon  call¬ 
ing  themselves  national.  So  when  they  wished  at  one 
blow  to  uproot  the  democratic  principle,  dissolve  the 
Union,  and  ruin  the  nation,  they  took  care  to  call  them¬ 
selves  National  Union  Democrats.  And  so  far  had  this 
demoralization  gone  that  if  you  found  a  man — and  there 
were  many  such — who  really  thought  our  system  a  fail¬ 
ure,  who  hated  the  very  name  of  progress,  who  believed 
the  doctrine  of  equal  rights  to  be  a  mere  gull  for  the 
mob,  who  heartily  despised  the  people,  and  secretly 
preferred  a  monarchy,  you  might  be  very  sure  that  you 
had  found  a  man  who  regularly  voted  the  Democratic 
ticket. 

Thank  God,  the  war  has  rubbed  out  party  lines.  In 
the  holy  name  of  democracy,  or  the  self-government 
of  the  people,  let  this  shameful  forgery  be  exposed ! 
Let  us  not  endure  that  any  body  of  men,  who  in  theory 
and  practice  trample  upon  the  original  rights  of  man, 
shall  be  called  the  American  Democracy,  until  we  are 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


13  9 


ready  to  grant  that  those  who  crucified  Christ  were 
justly  called  Christians. 

The  winter  of  1860-61  was  the  turning-point  of  our 
history.  Just  think  what  Calhoun  had  done  !  In  1833 
every  State  but  his  own  frowned  upon  him.  In  i860  he 
had  made  it  doubtful  whether  a  shot  would  be  fired  to 
save  the  nation.  In  New  York,  at  a  private  meeting  of 
capitalists  and  politicians,  one  of  the  present  representa¬ 
tives  of  that  city  gravely  proposed  that  the  terms  of  the 
Southern  leaders  should  be  accepted  in  advance,  before 
they  were  known,  and  one  of  the  largest  merchants  in 
the  city  cried  eagerly  “  Amen.”  But  another  of  the 
company,  one  of  the  richest  men  in  the  country,  said 
simply :  “  I  will  do  anything  honorable  to  keep  the 
peace.  The  South  owes  me  at  least  a  million  of  dollars ; 
but  should  it  raise  its  hand  against  the  Union,  I  will 
gladly  lose  that  million  and  every  other  dollar  I  have  in 
the  world  to  maintain  the  government.” 

But,  noble  as  his  words  were,  they  did  not  at  that 
time  speak  for  the  city  of  New  York.  Fernando  Wood 
and  the  Herald  were  the  truer  spokesmen  of  the  con¬ 
fused  public  sentiment  when  one  proposed  the  secession 
of  the  city,  and  the  other  the  adoption  of  the  Montgom¬ 
ery  Constitution.  If  the  city  of  New  York  in  February, 
1861,  had  voted  upon  its  acceptance,  it  would  have  been 
adopted.  She  would  have  bolted  it,  horns  and  all,  as  a 
boa-constrictor  swallows  an  ox. 

Europe  sent  her  shrewdest  correspondent  to  describe 
the  signs  of  the  times  in  this  country.  He  was  not  a 
philosopher,  but  he  was  a  sharp  observer.  He  landed 
in  New  York,  and  saw  much  of  men  of  public  and  pri- 


140 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


vate  distinction.  In  seeing  them  he  had  a  right  to  be¬ 
lieve  that  he  saw  a  fair  representation  of  the  public  sen¬ 
timent  of  substantial  America  in  regard  to  the  situation, 
and  what  did  he  find  ?  Why,  in  soft  drawing-rooms, 
where  pretty  ladies  lisped  disdain  of  the  horrid,  vulgar 
rail-splitter,  and  where  afterwards  a  British  nobleman 
was  allowed  to  wear  a  rebel  badge  unrebuked  by  the 
host,  the  correspondent  declares  that  he  found  almost 
all  men  of  position  holding  the  same  dilettante  tone, 
doubting  if  the  government  had  the  right  to  coerce — 
in  other  words,  to  enforce  its  laws — and,  in  general,  as 
little  anxious  for  the  future  or  excited  by  the  present 
as  a  party  of  savans  chronicling  the  movement  of  a  mag¬ 
netic  storm. 

Do  you  say  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the  character 
and  resolution  of  the  American  people?  True.  Nor 
did  we.  We  were  all  sliding  swiftly  along,  conscious  of 
standing  on  a  crust,  and  no  man  could  say  at  that  mo¬ 
ment  whether  brittle  as  glass  it  would  shiver  at  the 
next  step  and  plunge  us  all  into  anarchy,  or  whether — 
as,  God  be  thanked,  it  has  proved — it  were  firm  and 
enduring  as  adamant. 

There  is  no  more  pitiful  picture  in  history  of  a  society 
lost  to  all  emotion  of  patriotism  and  to  all  regard  of  the 
sanctity  of  law,  indicating  the  last  point  of  national  de¬ 
cay,  than  that  which  Russell  paints  of  the  city  of  New 
York  on  the  eve  of  this  great  war.  For  what  reason 
had  any  one  to  suppose  that  the  men  who  in  the  sum¬ 
mer  of  i860  gave  thousands  of  dollars  to  secure  the  po¬ 
litical  success  of  men  who  declared  plainly  that  if  they 
did  not  succeed  they  would  destroy  the  government, 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


1 41 

would  in  the  spring  of  1 86 1  give  thousands  of  dollars  to 
punish  the  same  men  for  keeping  their  word  ? 

No  wonder  that  as  Europe  heard  and  saw  what  we 
did  it  believed  as  Stephens  and  Toombs  and  Mason 
and  Hunter  believed,  that  we  were  too  hopelessly  cor¬ 
rupt  to  try  to  save  ourselves.  No  wonder  that  it  be¬ 
lieved  the  issue  to  be  a  foregone  conclusion ;  that  even 
if  the  new  administration  should  try  fighting,  it  was  too 
late ;  and  that,  seeing  one  section  practically  united  and 
ardent,  and  the  other  gloomy,  silent,  and  paralyzed, 
it  hastened  to  save  the  future  by  declaring  equal  bellig¬ 
erent  rights.  Was  it  unfriendly  to  do  it?  But  who 
were  we  that  made  the  complaint  ?  Scarcely  six  years 
before,  our  ministers  to  the  chief  western  powers  of 
Europe  met  in  the  capital  of  one  of  them  to  plot  the  for¬ 
cible  dismemberment  of  another.  When  the  ill-starred 
plotters  came  home,  we  made  the  first  conspirator  our 
chief  magistrate.  We  do  not  think  England’s  attitude 
friendly.  It  certainly  is  not.  We  do  not  think  Louis 
Napoleon’s  conquest  of  Mexico  friendly.  It  is  not.  It 
is  hostile.  But  what  do  we  think  of  the  Ostend  Confer¬ 
ence?  Who  taught  Europe  to  be  unfriendly?  When 
we  made  a  man  who  plotted  piracy  our  President,  we 
invited  the  civilized  world  to  treat  us  as  outlaws.  And 
no  wonder — when  we,  who,  with  the  arrogance  of  planta¬ 
tion  overseers,  had  assumed  in  time  of  peace  to  divide 
foreign  kingdoms,  in  their  own  capitals,  were  unable  or 
unwilling  to  avenge  a  mortal  insult  to  our  own  flag  in 
our  own  waters  upon  the  Star  of  the  West — that  the 
scorn  and  jealousy  and  hate  of  aristocratic  and  commer¬ 
cial  Europe  burst  from  the  sordid  lips  of  the  London 


142 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


Times  in  those  contemptuous  words:  “  The  United 
States  have  been  a  vast  burlesque  upon  the  functions  of 
national  existence,  and  it  was  Mr.  Russell’s  fate  to  be¬ 
hold  their  transformation  scene,  and  to  see  the  first  tum¬ 
bles  of  their  clowns  and  pantaloons.”  It  makes  a  man’s 
blood  boil  and  his  cheek  burn  to  think  such  words  were 
ever  spoken  of  us.  But  should  it  not  make  the  blood 
freeze  and  the  cheek  blanch  to  think  they  could  ever  be 
truly  spoken  of  us  ?  And  yet  when  President,  secreta¬ 
ries,  senators,  governors,  bound  by  solemn  oaths,  receiv¬ 
ing  public  payment,  were  secretly  leagued  to  forswear 
themselves,  to  defy  civilization,  and  outrage  human  nat¬ 
ure,  and  when  the  public  opinion  of  the  country  actually 
seemed  to  doubt  whether  the  government  had  a  right 
to  defend  its  life,  then  the  stinging  and  scornful  words 
are  justified  before  God  and  history,  that  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  the  United  States,  administered  by  such  men 
and  to  such  ends,  was  a  vast  burlesque  upon  the  func¬ 
tions  of  national  existence.  So  near  have  we  been 
brought  to  destruction.  Our  feet  had  slipped  to  the 
very  brink  of  the  pit  and  were  scorched  with  the  fire. 
What  had  brought  them  there  ?  Was  it  anything  else 
than  the  political  demoralization  wrought  by  the  South¬ 
ern  Policy,  which  by  the  necessity  of  its  character  is 
hostile  to  American  principles  and  a  free  government? 
You  thought  it  might  seduce  a  few  of  the  ignorant,  but 
that  the  intelligent  were  proof  against  its  seductions. 
But,  my  friends,  the  last  few  weeks  have  given  us 
another  melancholy  illustration  of  the  corroding  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  Southern  Policy  upon  fidelity  to  the  funda¬ 
mental  principles  of  the  American  government,  and  an 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


143 


illustration  whose  moral  does  not  end  with  an  election. 
A  polished  and  accomplished  gentleman  of  another 
State,  fortunate  in  many  ways,  addicted  to  public  life, 
and  a  proper  subject  of  public  criticism,  lately  broke 
the  long  political  silence  in  which  his  fellow-citizens  of 
this  State  had  fully  acquiesced,  and,  renouncing  his 
early  training  in  the  school  of  Daniel  Webster,  came  all 
the  way  to  New  York  to  surrender  to  the  ghost  of  John 
C.  Calhoun.  Standing  between  a  bully  and  a  swindler, 
that  the  sad  sacrifice  might  be  complete  and  conspicu¬ 
ous  and  lack  no  accessory  of  shame,  this  gentleman  de¬ 
liberately  said,  “We  cannot  fail  to  remember  that  it 
was  the  sectional  Republican  party  four  years  ago  who 
furnished  the  immediate  occasion  for  that  atrocious  and 
ungodly  assault  upon  the  Constitution  and  government 
which  inaugurated  this  civil  war.” 

Does  a  Constitutional  election  furnish  an  occasion  for 
atrocious  rebellion  except  to  the  basest  traitors?  What 
had  this  party  done  which  Mr.  Robert  C.  Winthrop 
holds  virtually  guilty  of  the  act?  It  had  done  what 
Daniel  Webster,  Mr.  Winthrop’s  political  teacher,  with 
all  the  chief  men  of  Boston,  did  on  the  3d  of  Decem¬ 
ber,  1819.  It  had  declared  that  slavery  ought  not  to 
be  extended,  and  that  Congress  ought  to  exercise  its 
constitutional  power  of  preserving  the  national  territory 
from  its  fatal  touch.  This  question  it  had  fairly  debated 
before  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in  good  faith 
and  without  a  threat.  Upon  this  question  it  went  into 
an  election  by  whose  result,  favorable  or  adverse,  it 
meant  to  abide.  Upon  this  question,  fairly  debated,  a 
President  was  constitutionally  elected.  A  party  of  his 


144 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


opponents  rushed  to  arms,  fired  upon  the  flag,  and  have 
sought  from  that  day  to  overthrow  the  government. 
“And  you  are  guilty,”  says  Mr.  Winthrop  to  the  Con¬ 
stitutional  majority  of  the  American  people,  “because 
you  insisted  upon  discussing  slavery  after  Mr.  Calhoun 
and  his  followers  had  told  you  to  stop.”  So  thoroughly 
is  his  political  faith  as  an  American  citizen  undermined, 
so  entirely  is  he  subjugated  by  the  sophistry  of  the 
Southern  Policy,  that  this  polished  and  accomplished 
gentleman  virtually  says  that,  if  any  party  in  this  coun¬ 
try  threatens  to  ruin  the  government  unless  it  can  rule  it, 
those  who  vote  against  that  party  are  guilty  of  the  con¬ 
sequences.  Now,  there  was  a  party  which  said  this  four 
years  ago  at  Charleston.  It  was  defeated,  and  it  is  keep¬ 
ing  its  word.  It  has  murdered  your  best  and  dearest. 
“Very  well,  why  did  you  furnish  the  occasion?  Your 
children’s  blood  is  upon  your  own  heads,”  says  Mr. 
Robert  C.  Winthrop.  I  am  not  questioning  his  perfect 
sincerity.  I  am  saying  nothing  of  him  that  I  would 
not  frankly  say  to  him.  But  here  is  a  gentleman  who 
declared  that  those  who  have  merely  exercised  the  right 
of  free  discussion  have  furnished  an  occasion  for  bloody 
rebellion ;  and  he  says  it,  not  to  condemn  the  conduct 
of  those  who  rebelled,  but  of  those  who  discussed ;  and 
the  more  intelligent  he  is,  the  more  sincere  he  is,  the 
more  ghastly  is  the  proof  that  it  is  not  the  impractica¬ 
bility  of  popular  principles,  but  the  infidelity  to  them  of 
educated  men,  which  has  plunged  the  country  into  war. 
How  true  it  is  what  Theodore  Parker  wrote  to  me  eight 
years  ago,  “  If  our  educated  men  had  done  their  duty, 
we  should  not  now  be  in  the  ghastly  condition  we  be- 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


*45 

wail.”  Young  men  of  Massachusetts,  young  men  of 
New  England,  two  Winthrops  appeal  to  you  in  this 
hour  of  national  peril,  both  intelligent,  refined,  accom¬ 
plished.  The  one  living,  supported  by  Fernando  Wood 
and  Isaiah  Rynders,  cheered  by  Jefferson  Davis  and 
every  rebel,  by  the  London  Times  and  the  men  who 
built  and  sailed  and  fought  the  Alabama,  by  every 
enemy  of  the  American  government  and  principle  in 
the  world — it  is  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  who  follows  John 
C.  Calhoun,  and  bids  you  follow  him.  The  other  dead, 
fallen  in  the  first  fierce  battle  of  the  war  to  maintain 
the  government,  dead  in  his  beautiful  youth,  full  of 
hope,  full  of  faith,  full  of  fidelity  to  the  American  princi¬ 
ple  and  the  American  people,  beckoning  to  you  as  he 
beckoned  to  his  brave  boys  in  the  very  moment  when 
he  fell  forward  into  death  and  glory — it  is  Theodore 
Winthrop,  who  follows  liberty  and  the  Union,  and 
whispers  to  you,  “  Follow  me,  follow  me.” 

Has  not  this  chapter  of  history  answered  our  ques¬ 
tion?  Are  we  at  war  because  our  government  is  found¬ 
ed  upon  impracticable  principles,  or  because  we  have 
been  false  to  them  ?  If  we  had  sincerely  believed  in  the 
equality  of  human  rights,  which  is  the  root  of  our  whole 
political  system,  we  should  have  insisted  upon  perfectly 
free  speech,  and  then  the  Southern  Policy  could  never 
have  demoralized  public  opinion.  But  we  have  not 
believed  it.  We  have  sold  our  birthright  for  a  mess  of 
cotton.  We  have  surrendered  the  right  of  free  discus¬ 
sion.  It  was  annihilated  before  our  eyes  throughout 
half  the  country,  in  a  time  of  profound  peace;  it  was 
coerced  in  the  other  half — and  we  submitted.  “  I  know 
I. — io 


146 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


not  how,”  said  Burke,  “  to  draw  an  indictment  against  a 
whole  people.”  But  we  have  drawn  it  against  ourselves. 
We  betrayed  our  own  principles,  and  those  who  would 
not  betray  them  we  reviled  as  fanatics  and  traitors. 
We  made  the  word  abolitionist  more  odious  than  any  in 
our  annals,  and  yet  no  man  can  be,  politically  speaking, 
an  American,  that  is,  he  cannot  heartily  believe  in  the 
principles  of  the  American  government,  without  being 
of  necessity  an  abolitionist.  And  history  will  here¬ 
after  recognize  these  men  as  the  body-guard  of  the 
American  principle,  not  only  because  they  asserted,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  right 
of  every  innocent  man  to  personal  liberty,  but  because 
in  the  fiery  furnace  of  popular  wrath  they  maintained, 
according  to  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  the  right  of 
free  speech.  They  were  fanatics — of  course  they  were ; 
so  is  Grant,  fanatically  boring  at  the  heart  of  the  Rebel¬ 
lion  ;  so  is  Sherman,  fanatically  pushing  towards  salt 
water;  so  is  Farragut,  fanatically  lashed  into  the  main¬ 
top,  above  the  fiery  storm  of  death  which  he  directs ; 
so  is  every  man  who  is  vowed  by  the  whole  force  of  his 
nature  to  succeed.  The  two  most  illustrious  fanatics  in 
our  history  were  John  C.  Calhoun  and  old  John  Brown. 
They  represented  the  inevitable  tendencies  of  American 
civilization.  One  died  in  his  bed,  honored  and  deplored 
as  a  great  statesman.  The  other  was  hung  upon  a  gal¬ 
lows,  derided  as  a  fanatic.  The  statesman  struggles 
with  his  last  strength  to  keep  millions  of  human  beings 
degraded.  The  felon  stoops  beneath  the  gallows,  and, 
tenderly  lifting  a  child  of  the  degraded  race,  kisses  her 
in  the  soft  winter  sun.  Peace !  peace !  History  and 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


147 


the  human  heart  will  judge  between  them.  Both  their 
bodies  lie  mouldering  in  the  grave ;  whose  soul  is 
marching  on?  It  was  the  fanaticism  of  abolitionism 
that  has  saved  this  country  from  the  fanaticism  of  sla¬ 
very.  It  was  fire  fighting  fire.  And  the  fire  of  Heaven 
is  prevailing  over  that  of  hell. 

Reconstruct,  then,  as  you  will.  But  we  are  mad  if 
the  blood  of  the  war  has  not  anointed  our  eyes  to  see 
that  all  reconstruction  is  vain  which  leaves  any  ques¬ 
tions  too  brittle  to  handle.  Whatever  in  this  country, 
in  its  normal  condition  of  peace,  is  too  delicate  to  dis¬ 
cuss  is  too  dangerous  to  tolerate.  Any  system,  any 
policy,  any  institution,  which  may  not  be  debated  will 
overthrow  us  if  we  do  not  overthrow  it.  The  proof  is 
the  war.  But  the  war  is  also  the  proof  that  we  are  not 
yet  overthrown,  and  the  election  is  the  proof  of  certain 
victory.  That  we  have  been  able  to  endure  such  a 
strain  directly  along  the  fibre  as  that  of  the  war  and  the 
election  is  due  to  the  general  intelligence  of  the  people 
and  to  the  security  of  perfectly  free  discussion.  Let 
that  henceforth  be  maintained  and  jealously  defended 
by  all  parties  in  the  land,  North,  South,  East,  and  West, 
at  every  county  cross-road  and  in  every  city  and  State, 
and  the  Union  and  government  are  forever  secure. 
Already  baffled  and  doomed,  the  helpless  spectre  of 
Calhoun  fades  and  dies  in  the  rosy  splendor  of  the 
dawning  day.  O  eyes  that  weep !  O  hearts  that  break  ! 
Not  in  vain  they  fell  who  have  saved  their  country. 
The  young  Hercules  strangled  the  serpents  in  his  cradle. 
The  young  America,  with  the  dew  of  her  baptism  of 
liberty  still  moist  upon  her  brow,  will  lay  with  one 


148 


POLITICAL  INFIDELITY 


hand  the  serpent  of  rebellion  and  with  the  other  the 
hydra  of  foreign  hate  dead  beside  her  cradle.  To  the 
American  Republic  belongs  the  national  domain.  To 
the  American  heart  belongs  the  national  principles  of 
Liberty  and  Union.  To  the  American  flag  belongs 
the  national  victory  which  shall  secure  those  principles 
from  sea  to  sea. 


I 


VI 

THE  GOOD  FIGHT 
1865-6 


This  lecture  was  written  in  the  autumn  of  1865,  and  delivered 
in  many  places  during  that  season  and  the  following  winter. 

The  Civil  War  had  ended.  Andrew  Johnson  was  President. 
Slavery  had  been  abolished  by  the  Constitutional  Amendment, 
and  the  process  of  “  Reconstruction  ”  was  actively  proceeding. 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


It  is  a  wise  old  saw  that  warns  us  not  to  whistle 
until  we  are  out  of  the  woods.  But,  as  we  climb  the 
Alps  and,  emerging  from  the  morass  and  forest,  see 
once  more  the  sun  and  the  broad  landscape,  we  may 
fairly  shout  and  sing,  although  we  are  still  toiling  on, 
and  are  yet  far  below  the  pure  peaks  towards  which 
we  go.  In  our  Revolution,  a  man  who  saw  distinctly, 
as  we  can  now  see,  that  the  triumph  of  Great  Brit¬ 
ain  would  have  imperilled  constitutional  liberty  every¬ 
where,  surely  had  a  right  to  rejoice  over  the  victory 
of  Saratoga,  though  it  was  not  the  end  of  the  war. 
The  battle  did  not  end  the  war,  indeed.  The  Tories 
sneered  and  bade  the  Yankees  wait.  They  did  wait. 
They  waited  from  Burgoyne’s  surrender  at  Saratoga  to 
Cornwallis’s  surrender  at  Yorktown.  Yankee  pluck,  as 
usual,  waited  until  it  won,  as  in  later  days  it  waited 
from  Bull  Run  to  Richmond.  The  battle  of  Saratoga 
was  a  skirmish  compared  with  our  later  battles,  but  it 
was  a  fatal  blow  to  Tory  supremacy  upon  this  conti¬ 
nent.  It  was  a  gleam  of  sunshine  in  which  it  was  right 
to  shout  and  sing,  for  it  was  another  great  gain  in  the 
Good  Fight  of  Man. 


152  THE  GOOD  FIGHT 

Human  history  is  the  story  of  that  Good  Fight,  of  the 
effort  of  man  to  attain  that  universal  liberty  to  which 
,  he  feels  himself  born.  All  wars  are  but  battles  in  this 
war.  It  is  fought  by  the  tongue  and  pen  as  earnestly 
as  with  the  sword  and  shell.  It  is  called  by  various 
names.  The  combatants  rally  under  various  banners. 
Whatever  in  human  nature  is  hopeful,  generous,  aspir¬ 
ing — the  love  of  God  and  trust  in  man — is  arrayed  on 
one  side.  The  meaner  passions,  the  baser  purpose,  stand 
upon  the  other. 

But  the  two  sides  are  always  plainly  apparent  in 
every  form  of  the  struggle,  and  every  man  inevitably 
shows  his  colors.  We  are  all  Butternuts  or  Bluecoats. 
A  modern  Protestant  clergyman,  for  instance,  who 
boils  down  his  Bible  to  distil  from  it  the  one  black 
drop  of  slavery,  and  who  excuses  the  most  horrible 
crimes  by  the  sending  back  of  Onesimus  and  the  curs¬ 
ing  of  Ham,  joins  hands  with  the  Romish  Grand  In¬ 
quisitor  Torquemada,  and  burns  human  freedom  at 
the  stake.  The  scientific  scholar,  who  from  the  forma¬ 
tion  of  Tom’s  shin-bone  proves  that  Dick  may  whip 
Tom’s  wife  and  sell  his  children,  fights  in  the  ranks 
with  the  cruel  skill  that  used  the  thumb -screw  and 
the  boots  to  frighten  the  mind  from  freedom.  And  an 
American  convention  which  solemnly  resolves,  with 
one  in  Pennsylvania  lately,  that  to  confer  the  right 
of  suffrage  upon  any  person  but  a  white  man  is  a 
crime  against  the  Constitution  and  a  degradation  of 
the  white  race,  helps  Philip  II.  of  Spain  to  crush  the 
Netherlands,  fights  with  the  redcoats  at  Saratoga,  tears 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  fires  at  the  flag 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT  1 53 

of  the  United  States  a  more  shameful  shot  than  that  at 
Sumter. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Greek  Leonidas  chok¬ 
ing  the  pass  against  the  Persian  torrent,  the  Italian 
Galileo  holding  fast  his  scientific  faith  in  the  teeth  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  Robert  Small  steering  his  bold 
boat  under  the  guns  of  slavery  straight  towards  the 
flag  of  freedom,  Abraham  Lincoln  patiently  saving 
civil  liberty,  are  all,  in  their  times  and  countries,  sol¬ 
diers  of  the  true  cross,  heroes  and  martyrs  of  the  Good 
Fight. 

The  part  assigned  to  this  country  in  the  Good  Fight 
of  Man  is  the  total  overthrow  of  the  spirit  of  caste. 
Luther  fought  it  in  the  form  of  ecclesiastical  des¬ 
potism  ;  our  fathers  fought  it  as  political  tyranny ; 
we  have  hitherto  encountered  it  intrenched  in  a  system 
of  personal  slavery.  But  in  all  these  forms  it  is  the 
same  old  spirit  of  the  denial  of  equal  rights.  Martin 
Luther,  the  monk,  had  exactly  the  same  right  to  his 
religious  faith  that  Giovanni  de’  Medici,  the  pope,  had 
to  his.  Galileo  had  the  same  right  to  hold  and  teach 
his  scientific  theories  that  the  Church  doctors  had  to 
teach  theirs.  Patrick  Henry,  a  British  subject,  had  the 
same  right  to  refuse  to  be  taxed  without  represen¬ 
tation  that  Lord  North,  another  British  subject,  had. 
Robert  Small,  one  of  the  American  people,  had  exactly 
the  same  right  to  vote  upon  the  same  qualifications 
with  other  citizens  that  the  President  has  or  the  Chief 
Justice  of  the  United  States.  The  Inquisition  in  Italy, 
aristocratic  privilege  in  England,  chattel  slavery  or  un¬ 
fair  political  exclusion  in  the  United  States,  are  only 


J54 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


fruits  ripened  upon  the  tree  of  caste.  Our  swords  have 
cut  off  some  of  the  fruit,  but  the  tree  and  its  roots  re¬ 
main,  and  now  that  our  swords  are  turned  into  plough¬ 
shares  and  our  Dahlgrens  and  Parrotts  into  axes  and 
hoes,  our  business  is  to  take  care  that  the  tree  and  all 
its  roots  are  thoroughly  cut  down  and  dug  up,  and 
burned  utterly  away  in  the  great  blaze  of  equal  rights. 

There  is  no  gentleman  in  America  but  he  who  feels 
that  every  man  is  his  equal  in  natural  right,  and  who 
does  not  know  that  he  is  cheated  if  every  man  does  not 
have  fair  play. 

In  January,  1865,  Louis  Wigfall,  one  of  the  rebel 
chiefs,  said,  in  Richmond,  “  Sir,  I  wish  to  live  in  no 
country  where  the  man  who  blacks  my  boots  or  cur¬ 
ries  my  horse  is  my  equal.”  Three  months  afterwards, 
when  the  rebel  was  skulking  away  to  Mexico,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States,  walked  through 
the  streets  of  Richmond  and  respectfully  lifted  his  hat 
to  the  men  who  blacked  Louis  Wigfall’s  boots  and  cur¬ 
ried  his  horse.  What  did  it  mean?  It  meant  that  the 
truest  American  President  we  have  ever  had — the  com¬ 
panion  of  Washington  in  our  love  and  honor — recog¬ 
nized  that  the  poorest  man,  however  outraged,  however 
ignorant,  however  despised,  however  black,  was,  as  a 
man,  his  equal.  The  child  of  the  American  people  was 
their  most  prophetic  man,  because,  whether  as  small 
shop-keeper,  as  flat-boatman,  as  volunteer  captain,  as 
honest  lawyer,  as  defender  of  the  Declaration,  as  Pres¬ 
ident  of  the  United  States,  he  knew  by  the  profound- 
est  instinct  and  the  widest  experience  and  reflection, 
that  in  the  most  vital  faith  of  this  country  it  is  just  as 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


*55 


honorable  for  an  honest  man  to  curry  a  horse  and  black 
a  boot  as  it  is  to  raise  cotton  or  corn,  to  sell  molasses 
or  cloth,  to  practice  medicine  or  law,  to  gamble  in 
stocks  or  speculate  in  petroleum.  He  knew  the  Euro¬ 
pean  doctrine  that  the  king  makes  the  gentleman ;  but 
he  believed  with  his  whole  soul  the  doctrine,  the  Amer¬ 
ican  doctrine,  that  worth  makes  the  man.  He  stood 
with  his  hand  on  the  helm,  and  saw  the  rebel  colors  of 
caste  flying  in  the  storm  of  war.  He  heard  the  haugh¬ 
ty  shout  of  rebellion  to  the  American  principle  rising 
above  the  gale,  “  Capital  ought  to  own  labor  and  the 
laborer,  and  a  few  men  should  monopolize  political 
power.”  He  heard  the  cracked  and  quavering  voice 
of  mediaeval  Europe  in  which  that  rebel  craft  was 
equipped  and  launched,  speaking  by  the  tongue  of  Al¬ 
exander  Stephens,  “We  build  on  the  corner-stone  of 
slavery.”  Then  calmly  waiting  until  the  wildest  fury 
of  the  gale,  the  living  America,  which  is  our  country, 
mistress  of  our  souls,  by  the  lips  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
thundered  jubilantly  back  to  the  dead  Europe  of  the 
past,  “  And  we  build  upon  fair  play  for  every  man, 
equality  before  the  laws,  and  God  for  us  all.” 

It  is  not  yet  the  Millennium.  We  have  not  yet 
reached  these  pure  heights  of  civilization,  the  ascent 
to  which  is  the  Good  Fight.  But  are  we  no  nearer  the 
summit  because  we  do  not  stand  upon  it?  Has  the 
Good  Fight  gained  nothing  by  the  war?  If  you  sail 
from  Boston  to  Calcutta,  when  you  are  off  Madagascar 
you  are  not  yet  in  India,  but  you  have  rounded  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope — you  are  not  yet  in  India,  but  at 
least  you  are  outside  Boston  Light.  I  do  not  say  the 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


J56 

country  is  yet  beyond  Boston  Light,  but  if  not,  it  is 
only  because  Boston  Light  is  the  sun  of  liberty  that 
shines  all  over  the  world. 

There  was  a  time  indeed  when  it  was  not  so,  when 
the  bold  mariner,  Roger  Williams,  sailed  beyond  the 
Boston  Light  of  two  centuries  ago,  and  asked  of  the 
wilds  of  the  Seekonk  and  the  Mawshawsuc,  “  What 
cheer?  What  cheer?”  And  the  friendly  solitudes  an¬ 
swered,  “  A  truer  liberty  than  you  left  behind.”  And 
if  Boston  Light  cheers  the  world  to-day  it  is  because 
the  spirit  of  Roger  Williams  feeds  the  flame. 

What  is  our  reckoning,  then?  How  far  are  we  tow¬ 
ards  Cathay?  What  advantages  has  the  Good  Fight 
of  Man  gained  in  the  war? 

We  have  shown,  first,  that  a  popular  government,  un¬ 
der  which  the  poorest  and  the  most  ignorant  of  every 
race  but  one  are  equal  voters  with  the  richest  and  most 
intelligent,  is  the  most  powerful  and  flexible  in  history. 
It  is  proved  to  be  neither  violent  nor  cruel  nor  impa¬ 
tient,  but  fixed  in  purpose,  faithful  to  its  own  officers, 
tolerant  of  vast  expense,  of  enormous  losses,  of  tortur¬ 
ing  delays,  and  strongest  at  the  very  points  where  fatal 
weakness  was  most  suspected.  “  If  you  put  a  million 
of  men  under  arms  you  will  inevitably  end  in  a  mili¬ 
tary  despotism,”  said  Europe.  “  The  reabsorption  of  an 
army  is  the  most  perilous  problem  of  any  nation.”  And 
within  six  months  of  the  surrender  of  Lee  an  English 
gentleman,  Sir  Morton  Peto,  found  himself  in  a  huge 
business  office  in  Chicago,  surrounded  by  scores  of  clerks 
quietly  engaged  with  merchandise  and  ledgers.  “  Did 
you  go  on  so  during  the  war?”  he  asked.  “Oh,  no, 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


*57 


Sir  Morton.  That  young  man  was  a  corporal,  that 
was  a  lieutenant,  that  was  a  major,  that  was  a  colonel. 
Twenty-seven  of  us  were  officers  in  the  army.”  “  I-n- 
d-e-e-d !”  said  the  English  gentleman.  And  all  Europe, 
looking  across  the  sea  at  the  same  spectacle,  magnified 
by  hundreds  of  thousands,  of  citizens  quietly  re-engaged 
in  their  various  pursuits,  echoes  the  astonished  exclama¬ 
tion,  “  I-n-d-e-e-d  !”  for  it  sees  that  a  million  of  men  were 
in  arms  for  the  very  purpose  of  returning  to  their  offices 
and  warehouses  to  sell  their  merchandise  and  post  their 
ledgers  in  tranquillity.  Yes,  the  great  army  that  for  four 
years  shook  this  continent  was  only  the  Yankee  consta¬ 
ble  going  his  rounds. 

European  Toryism  has  long  regarded  us  as  a  vulgar 
young  giant  sprawling  and  spitting  over  a  continent, 
whose  limbs  were  indeed  too  loose  and  ungainly  to  be 
very  effective,  but  who  might  yet  one  day  make  trouble 
and  require  to  be  thrashed  into  decency  and  order. 
When  Horace  Greeley  was  in  Paris,  he  was  one  morn¬ 
ing  looking  with  an  American  friend  at  the  pictures  in 
the  gallery  of  the  Louvre  and  talking  of  this  country. 
“The  fact  is,”  said  Mr.  Greeley,  “that  what  we  need  is 
a  darned  good  licking.”  An  Englishman  who  stood  by 
and  heard  the  conversation  smiled  eagerly,  as  if  he  knew 
a  nation  that  would  like  to  administer  the  castigation. 
“Yes,  sir,”  said  he,  complacently,  rubbing  his  hands 
with  appetite  and  joining  in  the  conversation,  “that  is 
just  what  you  do  want.”  “  But  the  difficulty  is,”  con¬ 
tinued  Mr.  Greeley  to  his  friend  as  if  he  had  heard  noth¬ 
ing,  “  the  difficulty  is  that  there’s  no  nation  in  the  world 
that  can  lick  us.”  It  was  true  —  so  we  turned  to  and 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


158 

licked  ourselves.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  a  young 
giant  who  for  the  sake  of  order  and  humanity  scourges 
himself  at  home,  is  not  very  likely  wantonly  to  insult 
and  outrage  his  neighbors.  Indeed,  measured  by  his 
neighbors  who  go  marauding  in  India  or  China  or  Mex¬ 
ico,  and  through  whose  slippery  neutral  fingers  a  dozen 
privateers  escape  to  sweep  his  commerce  from  the  sea, 
he  is  an  orderly  and  honorable  citizen  of  the  world. 
The  British  Tory  mind  did  not  believe  that  any  popu¬ 
lar  government  could  subdue  so  formidable  a  rebellion. 
Mr.  Gladstone  is  not  a  Tory,  but  even  he  said,  “  Great 
Britain  could  not  do  it,  sir,”  and  what  Great  Britain 
could  not  do  he  did  not  believe  could  be  done.  Per¬ 
haps  he  would  have  thought  differently  could  he  have 
heard  what  a  friend  of  mine  did  when  the  Massachu¬ 
setts  Sixth  Regiment  passed  through  New  York  on  its 
way  to  Washington.  It  was  the  first  sign  of  war  that 
New  York  had  seen,  and  as  Broadway  stared  gloomily  at 
the  soldiers  steadily  marching,  my  friend  stepped  into 
the  street  and,  walking  by  the  side  of  one  of  the  ranks, 
asked  the  soldier  nearest  him  from  what  part  of  the 
State  he  came.  The  soldier,  solely  intent  upon  stepping 
in  time,  made  his  reply  in  measure  with  the  drum-beat, 
“From  Bunk-er  Hill;  from  Bunk-er  Hill;  from  Bunk-er 
Hill.” 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  an  Englishman  and  a  scholar.  Plad 
he  walked  by  the  side  of  that  soldier,  remembering 
Cromwell’s  Ironsides  who  trusted  in  God  and  kept  their 
powder  dry,  and  the  old  Continental  militia,  I  think 
he  would  not  have  declared  as  he  did  that  “Jefferson 
Davis  had  created  a  nation,”  but  he  would  rather  have 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


IS9 


said :  “  If  Bunker  Hill  sends  the  first  soldiers  to  this  war, 
it  is  already  decided.  My  lords  and  gentlemen,  John 
Bull  had  better  touch  no  American  bonds  which  Bunker 
Hill  does  not  endorse.” 

But  the  indication  of  the  strength  of  our  system  was 
moral  as  well  as  physical.  “You  cannot  stand  the  strain 
of  a  civil  war  and  of  party  spirit  combined,”  said  the 
sceptics.  “You  will  end  in  anarchy  at  the  election.”* 
I  knew  those  who  apprehended  revolution  and  provis¬ 
ional  governments  as  November  approached.  In  hushed 
expectation  election  day  dawned.  You  remember  the 
old  story  of  an  agreement  of  everybody  in  the  world 
to  shout  all  together  at  the  same  moment  upon  a  cer¬ 
tain  day,  and  make  a  noise  that  would  be  heard  to  the 
stars.  The  hour  came — and  it  was  the  most  silent  mo¬ 
ment  ever  known.  The  sole  sound  was  the  thin,  weak 
cry  of  one  deaf  old  woman.  Everybody  else  in  the 
world  was  listening  for  the  prodigious  noise.  So  the 
Great  Election  passed  in  perfect  peace.  The  sun  of 
the  ninth  of  November  rose,  not  upon  a  convulsed  na¬ 
tion  tumbling  into  anarchy,  but  standing  calm,  strong, 
and  erect  upon  its  two  feet  of  Union  and  Liberty — and 
somewhere  upon  the  ground  the  tip-end  of  the  tail  of 
a  copperhead  snake  sneaking  into  his  hole. 

The  war  has  revealed  an  overpowering  national  in¬ 
stinct.  The  conflicting  theories  of  the  exact  nature 
and  limitations  of  our  government  had  blinded  the 
shrewdest  minds  to  the  fact  that  we  were  a  nation, 
with  all  the  feelings  and  instincts  of  a  nation,  and  that 

*  The  election  of  November,  1864 — the  re-election  of  Lin¬ 
coln. 


i6o 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


our  quarrels  must  be  settled  inside  and  not  outside  of 
the  Union. 

Mr.  Toombs  was  willing  to  dissolve  the  Union  to  save 
slavery,  Mr.  Phillips,  to  save  liberty;  while  Mr.  Seward, 
denounced  and  derided  by  both,  declared  that  the  deep¬ 
est  instinct  of  the  American  people  was  for  union.  Re¬ 
served  rights,  State  rights,  limited  powers,  the  advan¬ 
tages  of  union  and  disunion,  were  the  cucumbers  from 
which  we  were  busily  engaged  in  distilling  light,  over¬ 
looking  the  fact  of  nationality  in  discussing  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  union.  We  were  speculating  upon  costume. 
We  gravely  proved  that  the  clothes  were  the  clothes  of 
a  woman,  or  of  a  child,  without  seeing  that  whatever 
the  clothes  might  be  there  was  a  full-grown  man  inside 
of  them.  “  The  Constitution  is  a  contract  between  sov¬ 
ereign  States,”  shouted  Mr.  Toombs;  “let  Georgia  tear 
it  and  separate.”  “The  Constitution  is  a  league  with 
hell,”  calmly  replied  Mr.  Phillips;  “let  New  York  cut 
off  New  Orleans  to  rot  alone.”  “  Oh,  dear  !  it’s  a  dread¬ 
ful  dilemma,”  whimpered  President  Buchanan.  “  States 
have  no  right  to  secede,  and  the  United  States  have  no 
right  to  coerce.  Oh,  dear  me !  it’s  perfectly  awful ! 
I’m  the  most  patriotic  of  men — but  what  shall  I  do? 
what  shall  I  do  ?”  Separate!  Cutoff!  Secede!  It  was 
of  a  living  body  they  spoke,  which,  pierced  anywhere, 
quivered  everywhere. 

Our  national  unity  was  the  secret  of  the  force  of  each 
6f  the  members.  New  York  could  not  be  New  York 
nor  Ohio  be  Ohio  without  Massachusetts  and  without 
Georgia.  And  a  government  which  had  not  the  right 
to  coerce  had  not  the  right  to  exist. 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


161 


A  few  years  after  the  Constitution  was  adopted  Alex¬ 
ander  Hamilton  said  to  Josiah  Quincy  that  he  thought 
the  Union  might  endure  for  thirty  years.  He  feared 
the  centrifugal  force  of  the  system.  The  danger,  he 
said,  would  proceed  from  the  States,  not  from  the  na¬ 
tional  government.  But  Hamilton  seems  not  to  have 
considered  that  the  vital  necessity  which  had  always 
united  the  colonies  from  the  first  New  England  league 
against  the  Indians,  and  which,  in  his  own  time,  forced 
the  people  of  the  country  from  the  sands  of  a  confed¬ 
eracy  to  the  rock  of  union,  would  become  stronger 
every  year  and  inevitably  develop  and  confirm  a  na¬ 
tion.  Whatever  the  intention  of  the  fathers  in  1787 
might  have  been,  whether  a  league  or  confederacy  or 
treaty,  the  conclusion  of  the  children  in  i860  might 
have  been  predicted.  Plant  a  homogeneous  people 
along  the  coast  of  a  virgin  continent.  Let  them  gradu¬ 
ally  overspread  it  to  the  farther  sea,  speaking  the  same 
language,  virtually  of  the  same  religious  faith,  inter¬ 
marrying,  and  cherishing  common  heroic  traditions. 
Suppose  them  sweeping  from  end  to  end  of  their  vast 
domain  without  passports — the  physical  perils  of  their 
increasing  extent  constantly  modified  by  science,  steam, 
and  the  telegraph,  making  Maine  and  Oregon  neigh¬ 
bors —  their  trade  enormous,  their  prosperity  a  miracle, 
their  commonwealth  of  unsurpassed  importance  in  the 
world,  and  you  may  theorize  as  you  will,  but  you  have 
supposed  an  imperial  nation,  which  may  indeed  be  a 
power  of  evil  as  well  as  of  good,  but  which  can  no  more 
recede  into  its  original  elements  and  local  sources  than 
its  own  Mississippi,  pouring  broad  and  resistless  into 
I. — 11 


162 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


the  Gulf,  can  turn  backward  to  the  petty  forest  springs 
and  rills  whence  it  flows.  “No,  no,”  murmurs  the  mighty 
river;  “when  you  can  take  the  blue  out  of  the  sky, 
when  you  can  steal  heat  from  fire,  when  you  can 
strip  splendor  from  the  morning,  then,  and  not  before, 
may  you  reclaim  your  separate  drops  in  me.”  “  Yes, 
yes,  my  river,”  answers  the  Union,  “you  speak  for  me. 
I  am  no  more  a  child,  but  a  man ;  no  longer  a  con¬ 
federacy,  but  a  nation.  I  am  no  more  Virginia,  New 
York,  Carolina,  or  Massachusetts,  but  the  United  States 
of  America.” 

The  foreboding  statesman  who  knew  how  Greece  had 
fallen  asunder  and  perished,  who  knew  the  mean  tenure 
of  European  leagues,  who  knew  the  absolute  necessity 
of  union  and  the  jarring  jealousies  of  sections,  saw  in 
the  Constitution  but  a  shadowy  bond  which  foretold 
early  separation  and  disaster.  It  was  not  strange  when 
the  Union  was  scarcely  ten  years  old  —  still  in  the 
gristle  —  he  heard  the  serpent  of  State  sovereignty 
angrily  hissing  in  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolu¬ 
tions  of  ’98. 

Hamilton  doubted  the  cohesive  force  of  the  Consti¬ 
tution  to  make  a  nation.  He  was  so  far  right,  for  no 
constitution  can  make  a  nation.  That  is  a  growth,  and 
the  vigor  and  intensity  of  our  national  growth  tran¬ 
scended  our  own  suspicions.  It  was  typified  by  our 
material  progress.  General  Hamilton  died  in  1804.  In 
1812,  during  the  last  war  with  England,  the  largest  gun 
used  was  a  thirty-six  pounder.  In  the  war  just  ended 
it  was  a  two-thousand  pounder.  The  largest  gun  then 
weighed  two  thousand  pounds.  The  largest  shot  now 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


163 


weighs  two  thousand  pounds.  Twenty  years  after  Ham¬ 
ilton  died  the  traveller  toiled  painfully  from  the  Hudson 
to  Niagara  on  canal-boats  and  in  wagons,  and  thence  on 
horseback  to  Kentucky.  Now  he  whirls  from  the  Hud¬ 
son  to  the  Mississippi  upon  thousands  of  miles  of  vari¬ 
ous  railroads,  the  profits  of  which  would  pay  the  inter¬ 
est  of  the  national  debt.  So  by  a  myriad  influences,  as 
subtle  as  the  forces  of  the  air  and  earth  about  a  growing 
tree,  has  our  nationality  grown  and  strengthened,  strik¬ 
ing  its  roots  to  the  centre  and  defying  the  tempest. 
Could  the  musing  statesman  who  feared  that  Virginia 
or  New  York  or  Carolina  or  Massachusetts  might  rend 
the  Union  have  heard  the  voice  of  sixty  years  later,  it 
would  have  said  to  him :  “  The  babe  you  held  in  your 
arms  has  grown  to  be  a  man,  who  walks  and  runs  and 
leaps  and  works  and  defends  himself.  I  am  no  more  a 
vapor,  I  am  condensed.  I  am  no  more  a  germ,  I  am  a 
life.  I  am  no  more  a  confederation,  I  am  a  nation.” 

Carolina  or  Virginia  may  try  to  break  away.  In  the 
effort  it  may  destroy  its  local  government  as  it  has 
now  destroyed  it ;  except  by  successful  revolution 
no  rebellious  State  can  escape  the  jurisdiction,  and  it 
will  be  reorganized  exclusively  by  the  national  au¬ 
thority  of  the  United  States  of  America.  This  is  what 
Gettysburg  roars  and  Vicksburg  and  Port  Royal.  This 
is  the  thunder  of  the  Kearsarge  as  she  sinks  the 
Alabama .  This  is  the  song  of  Sherman’s  march  to 
the  sea ;  and  Lee’s  surrender,  the  fall  of  Richmond,  and 
the  universal  crash  of  the  Rebellion  mutter  and  murmur 
their  reluctant  “  Amen,  Amen.” 

But,  at  the  same  moment  that  the  profound  sense  of 


164 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


nationality  and  the  power  of  the  nation  are  revealed, 
the  national  mind  has  gained  a  clear  perception  of  the 
relation  of  morals  and  politics — the  strict  dependence 
of  civil  order  and  national  prosperity  upon  morality. 

The  relation  between  physical  sanitary  laws  and  the 
national  welfare  is  now  hardly  disputed.  At  this  mo¬ 
ment  the  cholera  is  stealthily  feeling  its  terrible  way 
along  the  edges  of  Europe  to  this  country,  and  there  is 
not  an  intelligent  man  who  does  not  know  that  it  is  a 
divine  vengeance  upon  uncleanliness.  Let  it  seize  the 
unclean  city  of  New  York,  and  it  will  riot  in  horror  and 
devastation.  Panic  will  empty  the  palaces — trade  will 
stop  in  the  warehouses.  Those  who  can  will  flee,  while 
the  poor  and  wretched,  poisoned  in  tenement-houses, 
will  be  huddled  in  heaps  of  agony  and  death.  Does 
any  man  say  that  cholera  is  God’s  remedy  for  over¬ 
population  ?  O11  the  contrary,  it  is  only  the  ghastly 

proof  that  God’s  laws  of  human  health  are  disregarded. 
It  is  not  a  proclamation  that  the  world  is  overpeo¬ 
pled;  it  is  merely  a  warning  for  the  world  to  provide  de¬ 
cently  for  its  population.  God  does  not  create  men  in 
his  image  to  rot  in  tenement-houses,  and  he  will  make 
squalor  and  filth  and  misery  plague-spots  threatening 
the  fairest  prosperity,  until  that  prosperity  acknowledges 
in  vast  sanitary  reforms  that  cleanliness  is  next  to  god¬ 
liness.  And  if  the  dread  pestilence  now  approaching 
our  shores  would  frighten  us  into  universal  purgation 
of  our  foul  cities,  it  would  be  seen  at  this  moment  hov¬ 
ering  in  the  wintry  air,  not  an  angry  demon,  but  a  stern 
angel  with  a  sword  of  fire  to  open  the  path  of  knowl¬ 
edge  and  humanity  and  civilization. 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


i65 

And  are  there  no  laws  of  moral  health?  Can  they 
be  outraged  and  the  penalty  not  paid?  Let  a  man  turn 
out  of  the  bright  and  bustling  Broadway,  out  of  the 
mad  revel  of  riches  and  the  restless,  unripe  luxury  of 
ignorant  men  whom  sudden  wealth  has  disordered  like 
exhilarating  gas ;  let  him  penetrate  through  sickening 
stench  the  lairs  of  typhus,  the  dens  of  small-pox,  the  cov¬ 
erts  of  all  loathsome  disease  and  unimaginable  crimes ; 
let  him  see  the  dull,  starved,  stolid,  lowering  faces,  the 
human  heaps  of  utter  woe,  and,  like  Jefferson  in  con¬ 
templating  slavery  a  hundred  years  ago  in  Virginia,  he 
will  murmur  with  bowed  head,  “  I  tremble  for  this  city 
when  I  remember  that  God  is  just.”  Is  his  justice  any 
surer  in  a  tenement-house  than  it  is  in  a  State?  Filth 
in  the  city  is  pestilence.  Injustice  in  the  State  is  civil 
war.  “  Gentlemen,”  said  George  Mason,  a  friend  and 
neighbor  of  Jefferson’s,  in  the  Convention  that  framed 
the  Constitution,  “  by  an  inscrutable  chain  of  causes  and 
effects  Providence  punishes  national  sins  by  national 
calamities.”  “  Oh  no.  gentlemen,  it  is  no  such  thing,” 
replied  John  Rutledge  of  South  Carolina.  “  Religion 
and  humanity  have  nothing  to  do  with  this  question. 
Interest  is  the  governing  principle  with  nations.”  The 
descendants  of  John  Rutledge  live  in  the  State  which 
quivers  still  with  the  terrible  tread  of  Sherman  and  his 
men.  Let  them  answer!  O  seaports  and  factories, 
silent  and  ruined !  O  barns  and  granaries,  heaps  of 
blackened  desolation  !  O  wasted  homes,  bleeding  hearts, 
starving  mouths !  O  land  consumed  in  the  fire  your 
own  hands  kindled!  Was  not  John  Rutledge  wrong, 
was  not  George  Mason  right,  that  prosperity  which  is 


i66 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


o?ily  money  in  the  purse,  and  not  justice  or  fair  play, 
is  the  most  cruel  traitor,  and  will  cheat  you  of  your 
heart’s  blood  in  the  end  ? 

“  Don’t  be  visionary,”  shouted  trade  and  the  spirit¬ 
ual  blindness  which  is  absurdly  called  practical  com¬ 
mon-sense  ;  “  morals  have  nothing  to  do  with  politics. 
Don’t  talk  of  injustice.  In  this  world  we  must  com¬ 
promise.  Compromise  is  the  very  essence  of  govern¬ 
ment.”  So  it  is,  if  you  do  not  attempt  to  compromise 
moral  principle.  “  All  government,”  says  Edmund 
Burke,  “  is  founded  upon  compromise  and  barter.  .  .  . 
But  in  all  fair  dealings  the  thing  bought  must  bear  some 
proportion  to  the  purchase  paid.  None  will  barter 
away  the  immediate  jewel  of  the  soul.”  And  what  is 
and  always  has  been  the  immediate  jewel  of  our  na¬ 
tional  soul  if  it  be  not  the  equal  rights  of  men? 

Compromise  equal  rights  in  the  United  States  !  Whit¬ 
tle  a  crowbar!  How  do  we  like  it,  as  the  boys  say,  as 
far  as  we  have  got?  You  may  compromise  questions 
of  cotton  and  corn,  but  you  cannot  long  compromise 
a  point  of  conscience.  Moral  principles  are  absolute 
and  eternal.  You  may  stretch  an  inch  of  india-rubber 
to  cover  your  hat ;  you  cannot  stretch  a  diamond  the 
shadow  of  a  hair. 

We  thought  we  could  and  we  tried  it.  The  breath 
of  our  national  nostrils  was  equal  rights.  The  jewel  of 
our  soul  was  fair  play  for  all  men.  But,  selecting  one 
class  of  our  population,  we  denied  to  them  every  natural 
right  and  sought  to  extinguish  their  very  humanity. 
Resistance  was  hopeless,  but  they  protested  silently  by 
still  wearing  the  form  of  man,  of  which  we  could  not 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


167 


deprive  them.  Planting  both  feet  upon  the  prostrate 
and  helpless — men  as  much  as  we — we  politely  invited 
the  world  to  contemplate  the  prosperity  of  the  United 
States.  Forests  falling,  factories  humming,  gold  glitter¬ 
ing  in  every  man’s  pocket !  Above  all,  would  the  world 
please  to  take  notice  that  it  was  a  land  of  liberty,  and 
that  we  offered  a  happy  home  to  the  oppressed  of  every 
clime?  “  A  wise  and  sensible  man  was  John  Rutledge 
of  South  Carolina,”  smiled  the  complacent  country, 
smoothing  its  full  pockets ;  “  morals  have  nothing  to  do 
with  politics.”  “  Good,”  mutters  the  ostrich,  as  he  bur¬ 
ies  his  head  in  the  sand ;  “  now  nobody  sees  me.” 

And  suddenly,  in  a  moment  smitten  by  the  avenging 
storm  of  fire,  choking  and  struggling  in  the  thick  clouds 
and  blood  of  war,  for  four  years  we  have  desperately 
wrestled  for  life,  and  kneeling  among  the  dear  and 
mangled  bodies  of  our  first-born  and  best-beloved,  we 
have  acknowledged  that  even  Yankees  cannot  shake  the 
throne  of  God,  that  he  has  created  men  with  equal 
rights,  and  that  morals  and  politics,  which  his  right  hand 
has  joined  together,  not  the  shrewdest  head  nor  the  bas¬ 
est  heart,  nor  the  most  prosperous  nation  nor  the  most 
insolent  and  popular  party,  nor  sneers  nor  falsehoods, 
nor  mean  men  nor  wicked  laws  can  put  asunder.  Ah, 
fathers,  mothers,  lovers,  whose  darlings  come  no  more, 
you  whose  sad  voices  ask,  “  What  have  we  gained  ?  what 
have  we  gained  ?”  how  can  your  aching  hearts  believe 
it,  but  this  war  of  four  years,  so  full  of  doubt  and  an¬ 
guish,  was  infinitely  nobler  and  more  glorious  than  the 
thirty  years  of  peace  before  it.  Four  years  more  of 
such  peace  would  have  slain  the  very  soul  of  the  nation  ; 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


1 68 

and  because  the  country  was  still  strong  enough  to  tear 
off  that  fair  and  fatal  robe  of  compromise,  because  she 
bared  her  bosom  and  bravely  endured  the  sharp  torture 
of  the  knife,  to-day  the  cancer  is  cut  away,  and  she 
stands  erect,  though  bleeding,  and  thanks  God  for  health 
renewed. 

This,  then,  is  the  gain  of  the  Good  Fight  in  this  war: 
first,  that  the  nation  has  attained  a  living  consciousness 
of  its  inevitable  unity ;  second,  that  it  has  proved  its 
enormous  power ;  and  third,  that  in  the  terrible  strug¬ 
gle  it  has  used  that  united  power  for,  and  not  against, 
equal  rights.  And  the  spirit  of  caste  which  it  has 
disabled  it  will  now  utterly  destroy.  For  the  Good 
Fight  is  not  a  crusade  against  a  section  or  a  State,  but 
against  caste  everywhere  in  the  country.  This  is  now 
intrenched  in  the  bitter  prejudice  against  the  colored 
race,  which  is  as  inhuman  and  unmanly  as  the  old  ha¬ 
tred  and  contempt  of  Christendom  for  the  Jews.  Lifting 
their  heads  from  bloody  defeat  in  the  field,  the  wan  and 
wasted  States  of  the  South  say  in  terms  caste  must  be 
maintained,  and  by  every  kind  of  vagrant  law  and  hos¬ 
tile  legislation  they  will  try  to  maintain  it. 

But  when  we  freed  the  slaves  we  did  not  say  to  them, 
“  Caste  shall  not  grind  you  with  the  right  hand,  but 
it  shall  with  the  left.”  We  said,  “  Caste  shall  not  grind 
you  at  all,  and  you  shall  have  the  same  guarantees  of 
freedom  that  we  have.”  President  Johnson  defines  the 
liberty  springing  from  the  Emancipation  amendment 
as  the  right  to  labor  and  enjoy  the  fruit  of  labor  to 
its  fullest  extent.  It  is  easy  to  quarrel  with  this  as 
with  every  definition.  But  it  is  good  enough,  and  it 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT  1 69 

is  as  true  of  Connecticut  as  of  Missouri  that  no  man 
fully  enjoys  the  fruit  of  his  labor  who  does  not  have 
an  equality  of  right  before  the  law  and  a  voice  in 
making  the  law.  That  is  the  final  security  of  the 
commonwealth,  and  we  are  bound  to  help  every  citi¬ 
zen  attain  it,  whether  it  be  the  foreigner  who  comes 
ignorant  and  wretched  to  our  shores  or  the  native 
whom  a  cruel  prejudice  opposes.  Do  you  tell  me  that 
we  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  State  laws  of  Ala¬ 
bama  ?  I  answer  that  the  people  of  the  United  States 
are  the  sole  and  final  judges  of  the  measures  neces¬ 
sary  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  freedom  which  they 
have  anywhere  bestowed.  If  we  choose,  we  may  trust  a 
certain  class  in  the  unorganized  States  to  secure  this  lib¬ 
erty,  just  as  we  might  have  chosen  to  trust  Mr.  Vallan- 
digham,  Mr.  Horatio  Seymour,  and  Mr.  Fernando  Wood 
to  carry  on  the  war.  But  as  we  wanted  honor  and  not 
dishonor,  as  we  wanted  victory  and  not  surrender,  we 
chose  to  trust  it  to  Farragut  and  Sherman,  to  Sheridan 
and  Grant.  If  you  don’t  want  a  thing  done,  says  the 
old  proverb,  send ;  if  you  do,  go  yourself.  When  Grant 
started,  Uncle  Sam  went  himself.  So,  if  we  don’t  care 
whether  we  keep  our  word  to  those  whom  we  have 
freed,  we  may  send,  by  leaving  them  to  the  tender  mer¬ 
cies  of  those  who  despise  and  distrust  them.  But  if 
we  do  care  for  our  own  honor  and  the  national  wel¬ 
fare,  we  shall  go  ourselves,  and  through  a  national 
bureau  and  voluntary  associations  of  education  and  aid, 
or  in  some  better  way  if  it  can  be  devised,  keep  fast 
hold  of  the  hands  of  those  whom  the  President  calls 
our  wards,  and  not  relinquish  those  hands  until  we 


170 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


leave  in  them  every  guarantee  of  freedom  that  we  our¬ 
selves  enjoy. 

Mayor  Macbeth,  of  Charleston,  told  General  Howard 
that  he  did  not  believe  that  a  bureau  at  Washington 
could  manage  the  social  relations  of  the  people  from 
the  Potomac  to  the  Rio  Grande.  But  the  answer  to 
Mayor  Macbeth  is  that  he  and  his  companions  h^ve 
managed  those  relations  at  a  cost  to  the  country  of 
four  years  of  civil  war,  three  thousand  millions  of  dol¬ 
lars,  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives.  The  Freed- 
men’s  Bureau  will  hardly  be  as  expensive  as  that. 

And  while  such  a  bureau  merely  defends  the  rights 
of  a  certain  class  under  the  laws,  the  aid  societies 
give  them  that  education  which  in  the  present  state 
of  local  feeling  would  be  inevitably  withheld.  The 
mighty  march  of  Sherman,  wasting  and  taming  the 
land,  is  followed  by  the  noiseless  steps  of  the  band  of 
unnamed  heroes  and  heroines  who  are  teaching  the 
people.  The  soldier  drew  the  furrow,  the  teacher  drops 
the  seed.  There  is  many  and  many  a  devoted  woman, 
hidden  at  this  moment  in  the  lowliest  cabins  of  the 
South,  whose  name  poets  will  not  sing  nor  historians 
record,  but  whose  patient  toil  the  eye  that  marks  the 
sparrow’s  fall  beholds  and  approves.  Not  more  noble, 
not  more  essential,  was  the  work  of  the  bravest  and 
most  famous  of  the  heroes  who  fell  in  the  wild  storm 
of  battle,  than  that  of  many  a  woman  to  us  unknown, 
faithful  through  privation  and  exposure  and  disease, 
and  perishing  at  the  lonely  outpost  of  duty  in  the  act 
of  helping  the  nation  keep  its  word. 

But  the  spirit  of  caste,  if  naturally  more  malignant 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


171 

in  a  region  where  personal  slavery  has  been  abolished 
against  the  will  of  the  dominant  class,  is  not  confined 
to  it.  We  are  apt  to  draw  the  line  geographically, 
but  it  will  not  run  so.  They  may  be  sad  goats  on 
the  other  side  of  the  line,  but  we  sheep  may  find  an 
occasional  speck  in  our  virtuous  wool.  “  Caste  must 
be  maintained,”  say  the  governors  and  legislatures  of 
Mississippi  and  Louisiana  and  Alabama  and  North  and 
South  Carolina  and  Georgia.”  “Amen,”  says  Connecti¬ 
cut,  “  that  is  a  political  wooden  nutmeg  for  this  mar¬ 
ket.”  “Amen,”  says  New  York,  which  prefers  to  pour 
political  power  into  a  foreign  white  whiskey-skin  rath¬ 
er  than  into  a  native  sound  and  serviceable  vessel  of 
a  darker  hue.  “Amen,”  says  Indiana,  which  asks  her 
colored  children  to  fight  and  die  for  her  upon  the  bat¬ 
tle-field,  and  refuses  by  her  laws  to  permit  the  sur¬ 
vivors  to  return  to  their  homes.  “  Amen,”  say  Penn¬ 
sylvania,  New  Jersey,  Illinois,  Michigan,  Iowa,  Califor¬ 
nia,  Minnesota,  Oregon,  Kansas,  Ohio,  Wisconsin,  Mis¬ 
souri,  and  West  Virginia,  which  forbid  an  entire  class 
of  their  citizens  to  vote  upon  equal  qualifications  with 
others.  And  why  ?  Because  the  party  of  hostility  to 
human  rights,  which  is  “  conservative  ”  in  this  grow¬ 
ing,  aspiring,  expanding  country,  exactly  as  sheet -iron 
swaddling-clothes  are  conservative  of  a  new-born  babe, 
pursued  by  the  pitiless  logic  of  the  sublime  Ameri¬ 
can  principle  and  driven  from  one  absurdity  to  an¬ 
other,  now  claims  that  ours  is  “  a  white  man’s  govern¬ 
ment.” 

Oh  no  !  Gentlemen,  you  may  wish  to  make  it  so,  but 
it  was  not  made  so.  The  false  history  of  Judge  Taney 


172 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


was  promptly  corrected  from  Judge  Taney’s  bench  by 
Justice  Curtis. 

Government  of  the  United  States  was  made  by  men 
of  all  races  and  all  colors,  not  for  white  men,  but  for 
the  refuge  and  defence  of  man .  If  it  does  not  rest 
upon  the  natural  rights  of  man  it  rests  nowhere.  If  it 
does  not  exist  by  the  consent  of  the  governed  then 
any  exclusion  is  possible,  and  it  is  a  shorter  step  from 
an  exclusive  white  man’s  government  to  an  exclusively 
rich  white  man’s  government,  than  it  is  from  a  sys¬ 
tem  for  mankind  to  one  for  white  men.  The  spirit 
which  excludes  some  men  to-day  because  they  are  of  a 
certain  color,  may  exclude  others  to-morrow  because 
they  are  of  a  certain  poverty  or  a  certain  church  or  a 
certain  birthplace.  There  is  no  safety,  no  guarantee, 
no  security  in  a  prejudice.  If  we  would  build  strong 
and  long,  we  must  build  upon  moral  principle.  A 
white  man’s  government !  Not  a  government  of  in¬ 
telligence,  of  justice,  of  virtue  ;  not  a  government  by 
the  consent  of  the  governed,  but  a  government  of 
complexion,  where  reason  is  skin-deep !  Who  is  a 
white  man?  Is  a  Spaniard?  Is  a  Creole?  Is  an 
octoroon  ?  Ohio  says  that  a  blood  mixture  of  half- 
and-half  will  do  for  her.  But  if  you  have  a  qualifi¬ 
cation  for  the  enjoyment  of  equal  rights  which  vast 
numbers  of  our  population  cannot  by  nature  satisfy, 
it  is  as  if  you  made  it  depend  upon  a  man’s  height 
or  the  color  of  his  hair.  You  ask  us  to  prefer  a  sys¬ 
tem  of  accidents  to  one  of  principles.  You  ask  us  to 
agree  that  a  worthless,  idle,  drunken  rascal,  whose  face 
might  possibly  be  white  if  it  could  ever  be  washed  clean 


/ 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


*73 


enough,  may  be  more  safely  trusted  with  political 
power  than  an  honest,  intelligent,  sober,  industrious 
colored  citizen. 

A  white  man’s  government !  Well,  I  am  a  white 
man,  I  believe.  Will  anybody  undertake  to  teach  me 
what  are  the  antipathies  and  loathings  of  white  men? 
What  mean  whites  may  or  may  not  like  is  of  small  im¬ 
portance.  But  the  generous  soul  of  my  race,  which  has 
led  the  van  in  the  great  march  of  liberty  and  civili¬ 
zation,  and  whose  lofty  path  is  marked  by  the  broken 
chains  of  every  form  of  slavery,  has  an  instinctive  ha¬ 
tred  of  injustice,  of  exclusive  privilege,  of  arrogance, 
ignorance,  and  baseness,  and  an  instinctive  love  of 
honor,  magnanimity,  and  justice.  The  white  soul  of 
my  race  naturally  loves  the  man,  of  whatever  race  or 
color,  who  bravely  fights  and  gloriously  dies  for  equal 
rights,  and  instinctively  loathes  every  man  who,  saved 
by  the  blood  of  such  heroes,  deems  himself  made  of 
choicer  clay.  The  spirit  of  caste  asks  us  to  believe 
the  outraged  race  inferior.  Inferior?  Inferior  in  what? 
In  sagacity?  In  fidelity?  In  nobility  of  soul?  In 
the  prime  qualities  of  manhood  ?  And  who  are  asked 
to  believe  this  ?  We — we — hot,  panting,  exhausted  from 
a  fight  for  our  national  life  in  a  part  of  the  country 
where  every  white  face  was  probably  that  of  an  enemy, 
and  every  colored  face  was  surely  that  of  a  friend.  We 
are  asked  to  say  it — whose  brothers  and  sons,  escaping 
from  horrible  pens  of  torture  and  death  hundreds  of 
miles  from  our  lines,  made  their  way  through  swamps 
and  forests,  safe  from  hungry  bloodhounds  and  fiercer 
men,  back  to  our  homes  and  hearts,  only  because  the 


174 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


men  whom  in  our  triumphant  fortune  we  are  asked  to 
betray,  in  our  darkest  hour  of  misfortune  risked  their 
lives  to  save  ours. 

Inferior  race !  Was  it  they  who  carved  the  skulls 
of  our  boys  into  drinking- cups  and  their  bones  into 
trinkets?  Was  it  they  who  starved  and  froze  our  . 
brothers  into  idiocy  and  madness  at  Andersonville  and 
Belle-Isle  ?  Was  it  they  who  hunted  our  darlings  with 
bloodhounds,  or  hung  faithful  Union  men  before  the 
very  eyes  of  their  wives  and  children  ?  Come  !  Come  ! 
brothers  of  my  race,  whether  at  the  North  or  South — 
these  things  which  we  all  execrate  and  abhor  were  the 
work  of  men  of  our  own  color.  Let  us  clasp  hands  in 
speechless  shame,  and  confess  that  manhood  in  Amer¬ 
ica  is  to  be  measured  not  by  the  color  of  the  skin,  but 
by  the  quality  of  the  soul. 

I  know  how  subtle,  elusive,  apparently  ineradicable,  is 
the  spirit  of  caste.  But  I  remember  that  the  English 
lords  six  centuries  ago  tore  out  the  teeth  of  the  Jew 
Isaac  of  York  in  the  dungeon  under  the  castle;  and  to¬ 
day  he  lives  proudly  in  the  castle,  and  the  same  lords 
come  respectfully  to  his  daughter’s  marriage,  while  the 
most  brilliant  Tory  in  the  British  Parliament  proposes 
her  health,  and  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England  leads 
the  hip-hip-hurrah  at  the  wedding  breakfast.  Caste  is 
very  strong,  but  I  remember  that  five  years  ago  there 
were  good  men  among  us  who  said,  If  white  hands  can’t 
win  this  fight  let  it  be  lost.  I  have  seen  the  same  men 
agreeing  that  black  hands  had  even  more  at  stake  in  it 
than  we,  giving  them  muskets,  bidding  them  Godspeed 
in  the  Good  Fight,  and  welcoming  them  with  honor  as 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


*75 


they  returned.  Caste  is  very  strong,  but  I  remember 
that  six  years  ago  there  was  a  Tennessee  slave-holder, 
born  in  North  Carolina,  who  had  always  acted  with 
the  slave  interest,  and  was  then  earnestly  endeavoring 
to  elect  John  C.  Breckenridge  President  of  the  United 
States.  We  have  all  seen  that  same  man  four  years 
afterwards,  while  Tennessee  quivered  with  civil  war, 
standing  beneath  the  autumn  stars  and  saying :  “  Colored 
men  of  Tennessee,  humble  and  unworthy  as  I  am,  if 
no  better  shall  be  found  I  will  indeed  be  your  Moses 
and  lead  you  through  the  Red  Sea  of  war  and  bondage 
to  a  fairer  future  of  liberty  and  peace.  I  speak  now  as 
one  who  feels  the  world  his  country  and  all  who  love 
equal  rights  his  friends.”  So  said  Andrew  Johnson,  God 
and  his  country  listening.  God  and  his  country  watch¬ 
ing,  Andrew  Johnson  will  keep  his  word. 

Yes,  yes;  caste  is  a  glacier,  cold,  towering,  apparently 
as  eternal  as  the  sea  itself.  But  at  last  that  glittering 
mountain  of  ice  touches  the  edge  of  the  Gulf  Stream. 
Down  come  pinnacle  and  peak,  frosty  spire  and  shining 
cliff.  Like  a  living  monster  of  shifting  hues,  a  huge 
chameleon  of  the  sea,  the  vast  mass  silently  rolls  and 
plunges  and  shrinks,  and  at  last  utterly  disappears  in  that 
inexorable  warmth  of  water.  So  with  us  the  glacier  has 
touched  the  Gulf  Stream.  On  Palm  Sunday,  at  Appo¬ 
mattox  Court-House,  the  spirit  of  feudalism,  of  aristoc¬ 
racy,  of  injustice  in  this  country,  surrendered,  in  the  per¬ 
son  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  the  Virginian  slave-holder,  to  the 
spirit  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  of  equal 
rights,  in  the  person  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  the  Illinois 
tanner. 


176 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


So  closed  this  great  campaign  in  the  Good  Fight  of 
Liberty.  So  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  often  baffled, 
struck  an  immortal  blow,  and  gave  the  right  hand  of 
heroic  fellowship  to  their  brethren  of  the  West.  So 
the  silent  captain,  when  all  his  lieutenants  had  secured 
their  separate  fame,  put  on  the  crown  of  victory  and 
ended  civil  war. 

As  fought  the  Lieutenant-General  of  the  United 
States,  so  fight  the  United  States  themselves,  in  the 
Good  Fight  of  Man.  With  Grant’s  tenacity,  his  patience, 
his  promptness,  his  tranquil  faith,  let  us  assault  the  new 
front  of  the  old  enemy.  We,  too,  must  push  through 
the  enemy’s  Wilderness,  holding  every  point  we  gain. 
We,  too,  must  charge  at  daybreak  upon  his  Spottsylva- 
nia  Heights.  We,  too,  must  flank  his  angry  lines  and 
push  them  steadily  back.  We,  too,  must  fling  ourselves 
against  the  baffling  flames  of  Cold  Harbor.  We,  too,  out¬ 
witting  him  by  night,  must  throw  our  whole  force  across 
swamp  and  river,  and  stand  intrenched  before  his  cap¬ 
ital.  And  we,  too,  at  last,  on  some  soft,  auspicious  day 
of  spring,  loosening  all  our  shining  lines,  and  bursting 
with  wild  battle  music  and  universal  shout  of  victory 
over  the  last  desperate  defence,  must  occupy  the  very 
citadel  of  caste,  force  the  old  enemy  to  final  and  uncon¬ 
ditional  surrender,  and  bring  Boston  and  Charleston  to 
sing  Te  Deum  together  for  the  triumphant  equal  rights 
of  man. 

Never  fear,  true  hearts!  A  people  which  has  shown 
the  quality  of  its  genius  as  this  nation  has  in  the  last 
four  years  will  finish  its  work.  It  will  go  forward  and 
not  backward. 


THE  GOOD  FIGHT 


1J7 


44  Tramp,  tramp,  tramp,  the  boys  are  marching. 

Cheer  up,  comrades — they  will  come  !” 

For  our  America  shall  be  the  Sinai  of  the  nations, 
and  from  the  terrible  thunders  and  lightnings  of  its 
great  struggle  shall  proceed  the  divine  law  of  liberty 
that  shall  subdue  and  harmonize  the  world. 


I. - 12 


VII 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 

A  SPEECH  MADE  IN  THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  CONVENTION  OF 
THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK,  JULY  19,  1867 


During  the  summer  of  1867  a  Constitutional  Convention  for 
the  State  of  New  York  was  held  at  Albany.  Mr.  Curtis  was  a 
member  of  it  from  Richmond  County.  He  took  an  active  part 
in  its  deliberations  and  debates. 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


The  Convention  having  resolved  itself  into  the  Committee  of 
the  Whole  on  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Right  of  Suf¬ 
frage  and  the  Qualifications  to  hold  Office,  Mr.  Curtis  offered  the 
following  amendment : 

“  In  the  first  section,  strike  out  the  word  ‘  male,'  and  wherever 
in  that  section  the  word  ‘  he  ’  occurs  add  ‘  or  she,’  and  wherever 
the  word  ‘his  ’  occurs  add  ‘  or  her.’  ” 

Mr.  Curtis — In  proposing  a  change  so  new  to  our  po¬ 
litical  practice,  but  so  harmonious  with  the  spirit  and 
principles  of  our  government,  it  is  only  just  that  I 
should  attempt  to  show  that  it  is  neither  repugnant  to 
reason  nor  hurtful  to  the  State.  Yet  I  confess  some 
embarrassment,  for  while  the  essential  reason  of  my 
proposition  seems  to  me  to  be  clearly  defined,  the  ob¬ 
jection  to  it  is  vague  and  shadowy.  From  the  formal 
opening  of  the  general  discussion  of  the  question  in 
this  country,  by  the  Convention  at  Seneca  Falls,  in 
1848,  down  to  the  present  moment,  the  opposition  to 
the  suggestion,  so  far  as  I  am  acquainted  with  it,  has 
been  only  the  repetition  of  a  traditional  prejudice  or 
the  protest  of  mere  sentimentality,  and  to  cope  with 
these  is  like  wrestling  with  a  malaria  or  arguing  with 
the  east  wind.  I  do  not  know  why  the  committee 


i82 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


have  changed  the  phrase  male  inhabitant  or  citizen, 
which  is  uniformly  used  in  a  constitutional  clause  lim¬ 
iting  the  elective  franchise.  Under  the  circumstances, 
the  word  “  man  ”  is  obscure,  and  undoubtedly  includes 
women  as  much  as  the  word  “  mankind.’’  But  the  in¬ 
tention  of  the  clause  is  evident,  and  the  report  of  the 
committee  makes  it  indisputable.  Had  the  committee 
been  willing  to  say  directly  what  they  say  indirectly, 
the  eighth  line  and  what  follows  would  read :  “  Pro¬ 
vided  that  idiots,  lunatics,  persons  under  guardianship, 
felons,  women,  and  persons  convicted  of  bribery,  etc., 
shall  not  be  entitled  to  vote.”  In  their  report,  the 
committee  omit  to  tell  us  why  they  politically  class  the 
women  of  New  York  with  idiots  and  criminals.  They 
assert  merely  that  the  general  enfranchisement  of  wom¬ 
en  would  be  a  novelty,  which  is  true  of  every  step  of 
political  progress,  and  is  therefore  a  presumption  in  its 
favor,  and  they  speak  of  it  in  a  phrase  which  is  intend¬ 
ed  to  stigmatize  it  as  unwomanly,  which  is  simply  an 
assumption  and  a  prejudice. 

I  wish  to  know,  sir,  and  I  ask  in  the  name  of  the  po¬ 
litical  justice  and  consistency  of  this  State,  why  it  is 
that  half  of  the  adult  population,  as  vitally  interested 
in  good  government  as  the  other  half,  who  own  prop¬ 
erty,  manage  estates,  and  pay  taxes,  who  discharge  all 
the  duties  of  good  citizens  and  are  perfectly  intelligent 
and  capable,  are  absolutely  deprived  of  political  power, 
and  classed  with  lunatics  and  felons.  The  boy  will  be¬ 
come  a  man  and  a  voter ;  the  lunatic  may  emerge  from 
the  cloud  and  resume  his  rights ;  the  idiot,  plastic  under 
the  tender  hand  of  modern  science,  may  be  moulded 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE  1 83 

into  the  full  citizen ;  the  criminal  whose  hand  still  drips 
with  the  blood  of  his  country  and  of  liberty  may  be 
pardoned  and  restored.  But  no  age,  no  wisdom,  no 
peculiar  fitness,  no  public  service,  no  effort,  no  desire 
can  remove  from  women  this  enormous  and  extraordi¬ 
nary  disability.  Upon  what  reasonable  grounds  does 
it  rest?  Upon  none  whatever.  It  is  contrary  to  nat¬ 
ural  justice,  to  the  acknowledged  and  traditional  prin¬ 
ciples  of  the  American  government,  and  to  the  most 
enlightened  political  philosophy. 

The  absolute  exclusion  of  women  from  political  pow¬ 
er  in  this  State  is  simply  usurpation.  “  In  every  age 
and  country,”  says  the  historian  Gibbon,  nearly  a  hun¬ 
dred  years  ago,  “  the  wiser,  or  at  least  the  stronger, 
of  the  two  sexes  has  usurped  the  powers  of  the  State 
and  confined  the  other  to  the  cares  and  pleasures  of 
domestic  life.”  The  historical  fact  is  that  the  usurping 
class,  as  Gibbon  calls  them,  have  always  regulated  the 
position  of  women  by  their  own  theories  and  conven¬ 
ience.  The  barbaric  Persian,  for  instance,  punished  an 
insult  to  the  woman  with  death,  not  because  of  her,  but 
of  himself.  She  was  part  of  him.  And  the  civilized 
English  Blackstone  only  repeats  the  barbaric  Persian 
when  he  says  that  the  wife  and  husband  form  but  one 
person  —  that  is,  the  husband.  Sir,  it  would  be  ex¬ 
tremely  amusing,  if  it  were  not  tragical,  to  trace  the 
consequences  of  this  theory  on  human  society,  and  the 
unhappy  effect  upon  the  progress  of  civilization  of  this 
morbid  estimate  of  the  importance  of  men.  Gibbon  gives 
a  curious  instance  of  it,  and  an  instance  which  recalls 
the  spirit  of  the  modern  English  laws  of  divorce.  There 


184 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


was  a  temple  in  Rome  to  the  goddess  who  presided 
over  the  peace  of  marriages.  “  But,”  says  the  historian, 
“  her  very  name  Viriplaca — the  appeaser  of  husbands — 
shows  that  repentance  and  submission  were  always  ex¬ 
pected  from  the  wife  ” — as  if  the  offence  usually  came 
from  her.  In  the  “  Lawe’s  Resolution  of  Women’s 
Rights,”  published  in  the  year  1632,  a  book  which  I 
have  not  seen,  but  of  which  there  are  copies  in  the 
country,  the  anonymous  and  quaint  author  says,  and 
with  a  sly  satire :  “  It  is  true  that  man  and  woman  are 
one  person,  but  understand  in  what  manner.  When  a 
small  brooke  or  little  river  incorporateth  with  Rhoda- 
nus,  Humber,  or  the  Thames,  the  poor  rivulet  loseth 
her  name ;  it  is  carried  and  recarried  with  the  new  asso¬ 
ciate  :  it  beareth  no  sway — it  possesseth  nothing  during 
coverture.  A  woman  as  soon  as  she  is  married,  is  called 
covert :  in  Latine  nupta — that  is,  veiled  ;  as  it  were  over¬ 
clouded  and  shadowed ;  she  hath  lost  her  streame.  I 
may  more  truly  farre  away,  say  to  a  married  woman, 
her  new  self  is  her  superior;  her  companion  her  mas¬ 
ter.  .  .  .  See  here  the  reason  of  that  which  I  touched 
before — that  women  have  no  voice  in  Parliament ;  they 
make  no  laws ;  they  consent  to  none ;  they  abrogate 
none.  All  of  them  are  understood  either  married  or  to 
be  married,  and  their  desires  are  to  their  husbands.” 

From  this  theory  of  ancient  society  that  woman  is 
absorbed  in  man,  that  she  is  a  social  inferior  and  a  sub¬ 
ordinate  part  of  man,  springs  the  system  of  laws  in  re¬ 
gard  to  woman  which  in  every  civilized  country  is  now 
in  course  of  such  rapid  modification,  and  it  is  this  the¬ 
ory  which  so  tenaciously  lingers  as  a  traditional  preju- 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE  185 

dice  in  our  political  customs.  But  a  State  which,  like 
New  York,  recognizes  the  equal  individual  rights  of  all 
its  members,  declaring  that  none  of  them  shall  be  dis¬ 
franchised  unless  by  the  law  of  the  land  or  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  his  peers,  and  which  acknowledges  women  as 
property -holders  and  taxable,  responsible  citizens,  has 
wholly  renounced  the  old  feudal  and  pagan  theory, 
and  has  no  right  to  continue  the  evil  condition  which 
springs  from  it.  The  honorable  and  eloquent  gentle¬ 
man  from  Onondaga  said  that  he  favored  every  en¬ 
largement  of  the  franchise  consistent  with  the  safety 
of  the  State.  Sir,  I  heartily  agree  with  him,  and  it 
was  the  duty  of  the  committee,  in  proposing  to  con¬ 
tinue  the  exclusion  of  women,  to  show  that  it  is  nec¬ 
essary  to  the  welfare  and  safety  of  the  State  that  the 
whole  sex  shall  be  disfranchised.  It  is  in  vain  for  the 
committee  to  say  that  I  ask  for  an  enlargement  of 
the  franchise,  and  must  therefore  show  the  reason.  Sir, 
I  show  the  reason  upon  which  this  franchise  itself  rests, 
and  which,  in  its  very  nature,  forbids  arbitrary  exclu¬ 
sion  ;  and  I  urge  the  enfranchisement  of  women  on  the 
ground  that,  whatever  political  rights  men  have,  women 
have  equally.  I  have  no  wish  to  refine  curiously  upon 
the  origin  of  government.  If  any  one  insists,  with  the 
honorable  gentleman  from .  Broome,  that  there  are  no 
such  things  as  natural  political  rights,  and  that  no  man 
is  born  a  voter,  I  will  not  now  stop  to  argue  with  him ; 
but  as  I  believe  the  honorable  gentleman  from  Broome 
is  by  profession  a  physician  and  surgeon,  I  will  suggest 
to  him  that  if  no  man  is  born  a  voter,  so  no  man  is 
born  a  man  —  for  every  man  is  born  a  baby.  But  he 


i86 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


is  born  with  the  right  of  becoming  a  man  without 
hinderance ;  and  I  ask  the  honorable  gentleman,  as  an 
American  citizen  and  political  philosopher,  whether,  if 
every  man  is  not  born  a  voter,  he  is  not  born  with  the 
right  of  becoming  a  voter  upon  equal  terms  with  other 
men  ?  What  else  is  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  which  I 
find  in  the  New  York  Tribune  of  Monday,  and  have  so 
often  found  there,  “  The  radical  basis  of  government  is 
equal  rights  for  all  citizens”? 

There  are,  as  I  think  we  shall  all  admit,  some  kind 
of  natural  rights.  This  summer  air  that  breathes  benig¬ 
nant  around  our  national  anniversary  is  vocal  with  the 
traditional  eloquence  with  which  those  rights  were  as¬ 
serted  by  our  fathers.  From  all  the  burning  words  of 
the  time  I  quote  those  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  of  New 
York,  in  reply,  as  my  honorable  friend  the  chairman  of 
the  committee  will  remember,  to  the  Tory  farmer  of 
Westchester:  “The  sacred  rights  of  mankind  are  not 
to  be  rummaged  for  among  old  parchments  or  dusty 
records.  They  are  written  as  with  a  sunbeam  in  the 
whole  volume  of  human  nature  by  the  hand  of  the  Di¬ 
vinity  itself,  and  can  never  be  erased  or  obscured  by 
mortal  power.”  In  the  next  year,  Thomas  Jefferson,  of 
Virginia,  summed  up  the  political  faith  of  our  fathers  in 
the  great  Declaration.  Its  words  vibrate  through  the 
history  of  those  days.  As  the  lyre  of  Amphion  raised 
the  walls  of  the  city,  so  they  are  the  music  which  sing 
course  after  course  of  the  ascending  structure  of  Ameri¬ 
can  civilization  into  its  place.  Our  fathers  stood,  in¬ 
deed,  upon  technical  and  legal  grounds  when  the  con¬ 
test  with  Great  Britain  began,  but  as  tyranny  encroached 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE  187 

they  rose  naturally  into  the  sphere  of  fundamental  truths 
as  into  a  purer  air.  Driven  by  storms  beyond  sight  of 
land,  the  sailor  steers  by  the  stars.  Our  fathers  derived 
their  government  from  what  they  called  self-evident 
truths.  Despite  the  brilliant  and  vehement  eloquence 
of  Mr.  Choate,  they  did  not  deal  in  glittering  generali¬ 
ties,  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  not  the 
passionate  manifesto  of  a  revolutionary  war,  but  a  calm 
and  simple  statement  of  a  new  political  philosophy  and 
practice.  The  rights  which  they  declared  to  be  unal¬ 
ienable  are,  indeed,  what  are  usually  called  natural,  as 
distinguished  from  political,  rights,  but  they  are  not  lim¬ 
ited  by  sex.  A  woman  has  the  same  right  to  her  life, 
liberty,  and  property  that  a  man  has,  and  she  has  con¬ 
sequently  the  same  right  to  an  equality  of  protection 
that  he  has ;  and  this,  as  I  understand  it,  is  what  is 
meant  by  the  phrase,  the  right  of  suffrage.  If  I  have 
a  natural  right  to  this  hand,  I  have  an  equal  natural 
right  to  everything  that  secures  to  me  its  use,  provided 
it  does  not  harm  the  equal  right  of  another ;  and  if  I 
have  a  natural  right  to  my  life  and  liberty,  I  have  the 
same  right  to  everything  that  protects  that  life  and  lib¬ 
erty  which  any  other  man  enjoys.  I  should  like  my 
honorable  friend  the  chairman  of  this  committee  to 
show  me  any  right  which  God  gave  him  which  he  also 
gave  to  me,  for  which  God  gave  him  a  claim  to  any  de¬ 
fence  which  he  has  not  given  to  me.  And  I  ask  the 
same  question  for  every  woman  in  this  State.  Have 
they  less  natural  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  property  than 
my  honorable  friend  the  chairman  of  the  committee  ? 
and  is  it  not,  to  quote  the  words  of  his  report,  an  ex- 


i88 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


tremely  “  defensible  theory”  that  he  cannot  justly  de¬ 
prive  the  least  of  those  women  of  any  protection  of 
those  rights  which  he  claims  for  himself?  No,  sir,  the 
natural,  or  what  we  call  civil,  right  and  its  political  de¬ 
fence  go  together.  This  was  the  impregnable  logic  of 
the  Revolution.  Lord  Gower  sneered  in  Parliament  at 
the  Colonists  a  century  ago,  as  Mr.  Robert  Lowe  sneers 
at  the  reformers  to-day.  “  Let  the  Americans  talk  about 
their  natural  and  divine  rights.”  “  I  am  for  enforcing 
these  measures.”  Dr.  Johnson  bellowed  across  the  At¬ 
lantic,  “Taxation  no  tyranny.”  James  Otis  spoke  for 
America,  for  common -sense,  and  for  the  eternal  justice, 
in  saying:  “No  good  reason,  however,  can  be  given  in 
any  country,  why  every  man  of  a  sound  mind  should  not 
have  his  vote  in  the  election  of  a  representative.  If  a 
man  has  had  but  little  property  to  protect  and  defend, 
yet  his  life  and  liberty  are  things  of  some  importance.” 
And,  long  before  James  Otis,  Lord  Somers  said  to  a 
committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  that  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  vote  is  the  only  true  security  which  an  Eng¬ 
lishman  has  for  the  possession  of  his  life  and  property. 

Every  person,  then,  is  born  with  an  equal  claim  to 
every  kind  of  protection  of  his  natural  rights  which  any 
other  person  enjoys.  The  practical  question,  therefore, 
is,  How  shall  this  protection  be  best  attained?  and  this 
is  the  question  of  government  which,  according  to  the 
Declaration,  is  established  for  the  security  of  these 
rights.  The  British  theory  was  that  they  could  bet¬ 
ter  be  secured  by  an  intelligent  few  than  by  the  igno¬ 
rant  and  passionate  multitude.  Goldsmith  expressed  it 
in  singing, 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


189 


“  For  just  experience  shows  in  every  soil. 

That  those  who  think  must  govern  those  who  toil.” 

Nobody  denies  that  the  government  of  the  best  is  the 
best  government ;  the  practical  question  is  how  to  find 
the  best,  and  common-sense  replied, 

“  The  good,  'tis  true,  are  Heaven’s  peculiar  care ; 

But  who  but  Heaven  shall  show  us  who  they  are?” 

And  our  fathers  answered  the  question  of  the  best 
and  surest  protection  of  natural  right  by  their  famous 
phrase,  “the  consent  of  the  governed.”  That  is  to 
say,  since  every  man  is  born  with  equal  natural  rights, 
he  is  entitled  to  an  equal  protection  of  them  with  all 
other  men ;  and  since  government  is  that  protection, 
right  reason  and  experience  alike  demand  that  every 
person  shall  have  a  voice  in  the  government  upon  per¬ 
fectly  equal  and  practicable  terms — that  is,  upon  terms 
which  are  not  necessarily  and  absolutely  insurmountable 
by  any  part  of  the  people.  These  terms  cannot  right¬ 
fully  be  arbitrary. 

But  the  argument  of  the  honorable  gentleman  from 
Schenectady,  whose  lucid  and  dignified  discourse  needs 
no  praise  of  mine,  and  the  arguments  of  others  who 
have  derived  government  from  society,  seemed  to  as¬ 
sume  that  the  political  people  may  exclude  and  include 
at  their  pleasure ;  that  they  may  establish  purely  arbi¬ 
trary  tests,  such  as  height  or  weight  or  color  or  sex. 
This  was  substantially  the  squatter  sovereignty  of  Mr. 
Douglas,  who  held  that  the  male  white  majority  of  the 
settlers  in  a  territory  might  deprive  a  colored  minority 
of  all  their  rights  whatever ;  and  he  declared  that  they 


190  THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 

had  the  right  to  do  it.  The  same  right  that  this  Con¬ 
vention  has  to  hang  me  at  this  moment  to  that  chan¬ 
delier,  but  no  other  right.  Brute  force,  sir,  may  do 
anything ;  but  we  are  speaking  of  rights,  and  of  rights 
under  this  government,  and  I  deny  that  the  people  of 
the  State  of  New  York  can  rightfully,  that  is,  accord¬ 
ing  to  right  reason  and  the  principles  of  this  govern¬ 
ment  derived  from  it ,  permanently  exclude  any  class  of 
persons  or  any  person  whatever  from  a  voice  in  the 
government,  unless  it  can  be  clearly  established  that 
their  participation  in  political  power  would  be  danger¬ 
ous  to  the  State ;  and,  therefore,  the  honorable  gentle¬ 
man  from  Kings  was  logically  correct  in  opposing  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  colored  man,  upon  the  ground 
that  he  was  of  an  inferior  race  of  limited  intelligence — 
a  kind  of  chimpanzee  at  best.  I  think,  sir,  the  honora¬ 
ble  and  scholarly  gentleman — even  he — will  admit  that 
at  Fort  Pillow,  at  Milliken’s  Bend,  at  Fort  Wagner,  the 
chimpanzees  did  uncommonly  well ;  yes,  sir,  as  glori¬ 
ously  and  immortally  as  our  own  fathers  at  Bunker  Hill 
and  Saratoga.  “  There  ought  to  be  no  pariahs,”  says 
John  Stuart  Mill,  “in  a  full-grown  and  civilized  nation; 
no  persons  disqualified  except  through  their  own  de¬ 
fault.  .  .  .  Every  one  is  degraded,  whether  aware  of  it 
or  not,  when  other  people,  without  consulting  him,  take 
upon  themselves  unlimited  power  to  regulate  his  des¬ 
tiny.”  “No  arrangement  of  the  suffrage,  therefore,  can 
be  permanently  satisfactory  in  which  any  person  or  class 
is  peremptorily  excluded ;  in  which  the  electoral  privi¬ 
lege  is  not  open  to  all  persons  of  full  age  who  desire  it.” 
And  Thomas  Hare,  one  of  the  acutest  of  living  political 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


191 

thinkers,  says  that  in  all  cases  where  a  woman  fulfils  the 
qualification  which  is  imposed  upon  a  man,  “  there  is  no 
sound  reason  for  excluding  her  from  the  Parliamentary 
franchise.  The  exclusion  is  probably  a  remnant  of  the 
feudal  law,  and  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  other  civil 
institutions  of  the  country.  There  would  be  great  pro¬ 
priety  in  celebrating  a  reign,  which  has  been  productive 
of  so  much  moral  benefit,  by  the  abolition  of  an  anomaly 
which  is  so  entirely  without  any  justifiable  foundation.” 

The  chairman  of  the  committee  asked  Miss  Anthony 
the  other  evening  whether,  if  suffrage  were  a  natural 
right,  it  could  be  denied  to  children?  Her  answer 
seemed  to  me  perfectly  satisfactory.  She  said  simply, 
“  All  that  we  ask  is  an  equal,  and  not  an  arbitrary,  regu¬ 
lation.  \i  you  have  the  right,  we  have  it.”  The  honor¬ 
able  chairman  would  hardly  deny  that  to  regulate  the 
exercise  of  a  right  according  to  obvious  reason  and  ex¬ 
perience  is  one  thing,  to  deny  it  absolutely  and  forever 
is  another.  The  safe  practical  rule  of  our  government, 
as  James  Madison  expressed  it,  is  that  “it  be  derived 
from  the  great  body  of  the  people,  not  from  an  incon¬ 
siderable  portion  or  favored  class  of  it.”  When  Mr. 
Gladstone,  in  his  famous  speech  that  startled  England, 
said,  in  effect,  that  no  one  could  be  justly  excluded 
from  the  franchise  except  upon  grounds  of  personal  un¬ 
fitness  or  public  danger,  he  merely  echoed  the  sentiment 
of  Joseph  Warren,  which  is  gradually  seen  to  be  the 
wisest  and  most  practical  political  philosophy:  “I  would 
have  such  a  government  as  should  give  every  man  the 
greatest  liberty  to  do  what  he  chooses,  consistent  with 
restraining  him  from  doing  any  injury  to  another.”  Is 


/ 


192 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


not  that  the  kind  of  government,  sir,  which  we  wish  to 
propose  for  this  State?  And  if  every  person  in  New 
York  has  a  natural  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  property, 
and  a  coexistent  right  to  a  share  in  the  government 
which  defends  them,  regulated  only  by  perfectly  equi¬ 
table  conditions,  what  are  the  practical  grounds  upon 
which  it  is  proposed  to  continue  the  absolute  and  hope¬ 
less  disfranchisement  of  half  the  adult  population?  It 
is  alleged  that  they  are  already  represented  by  men. 
Where  are  they  so  represented,  and  when  was  the 
choice  made?  If  I  am  told  that  they  are  virtually 
represented,  I  reply,  with  James  Otis,  that  “no  such 
phrase  as  virtual  representation  is  known  in  law  or 
constitution.  It  is  altogether  a  subtlety  and  illusion, 
wholly  unfounded  and  absurd.”  I  repeat,  if  they  are 
represented,  when  was  the  choice  made?  Nobody  pre¬ 
tends  that  they  have  ever  been  consulted.  It  is  a 
mere  assumption  to  the  effect  that  the  interest  and 
affection  of  men  in  women  will  lead  them  to  just  and 
wise  legislation  for  women  as  well  as  for  themselves. 
This  is  merely  the  old  appeal  for  the  political  power  of 
a  class.  It  is  just  what  the  British  Parliament  said  to 
the  colonies  a  hundred  years  ago.  “  We  are  all  under 
the  same  government,”  they  said;  “our  interests  are 
identical ;  we  are  all  Britons  ;  Britannia  rules  the  wave  ; 
God  save  the  king,  and  down  with  sedition  and  Sons 
of  Liberty.”  The  colonies  chafed  and  indignantly  pro¬ 
tested,  because  the  assumption  that  therefore  fair  laws 
were  made  was  not  true ;  because  they  were  discover¬ 
ing  for  themselves  what  every  nation  has  discovered — 
the  truth  that  shakes  England  to-day,  and  brings  Dis- 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


T93 


raeli  and  the  Tory  party  to  their  knees,  and  has  already 
brought  this  country  to  blood,  that  there  is  no  class  of 
citizens,  and  no  single  citizen,  who  can  safely  be  in¬ 
trusted  with  the  permanent  and  exclusive  possession  of 
political  power. 

“There  is  no  instance  on  record,”  says  Buckle,  in  his 
“History  of  Civilization  in  England,”  “of  any  class 
possessing  power  without  abusing  it.”  It  is  as  true 
of  men  as  a  class  as  it  is  of  an  hereditary  nobility 
or  of  a  class  of  property  holders.  Men  are  not  wise 
enough  nor  generous  enough  nor  pure  enough  to  leg¬ 
islate  fairly  for  women.  The  laws  of  the  most  civilized 
nations  depress  and  degrade  women.  The  legislation  is 
in  favor  of  the  legislating  class.  In  the  celebrated  de¬ 
bate  upon  the  marriage  amendment  act  in  England, 
Mr.  Gladstone  said  that  “  when  the  gospel  came  into 
the  world  woman  was  elevated  to  an  equality  with  her 
stronger  companion.”  Yet,  at  the  very  time  he  was 
speaking,  the  English  law  of  divorce,  made  by  men  to 
regulate  their  domestic  relations  with  women,  was 
denounced  by  the  law  lords  themselves  as  “disgusting 
and  demoralizing  ”  in  its  operation  ;  “  barbarous,”  “  in¬ 
decent,”  “  a  disgrace  to  the  country,”  and  “  shocking  to 
the  sense  of  right.”  Now,  if  the  equality  of  which  Mr. 
Gladstone  spoke  had  been  political  as  well  as  sentimen¬ 
tal,  does  he  or  any  statesman  suppose  that  the  law  of 
divorce  would  have  been  what  it  then  was,  or  that  the 
law  of  England  to-day  would  give  all  the  earnings  of  a 
married  woman  to  her  husband ;  or  that  of  France  for¬ 
bid  a  woman  to  receive  any  gift  without  her  husband’s 
permission? 

I— 13 


194  THE  right  of  suffrage 

We  ask  women  to  confide  in  us,  as  having  the  same 
interests  with  them.  Did  any  despot  ever  say  any¬ 
thing  else?  And  if  it  be  safe  or  proper  for  any  intelli¬ 
gent  part  of  the  people  to  relinquish  exclusive  political 
power  to  any  class,  I  ask  the  committee  who  pro¬ 
pose  that  women  should  be  compelled  to  do  this,  to 
what  class,  however  rich  or  intelligent  or  honest,  they 
would  themselves  surrender  their  power?  and  what 
they  would  do  if  any  class  attempted  to  usurp  that 
power?  They  know,  as  we  all  know,  as  our  own  ex¬ 
perience  has  taught  us,  that  the  only  security  of  nat¬ 
ural  right  is  the  ballot.  They  know,  and  the  instinct 
of  the  whole  loyal  land  knows,  that  when  we  had  abol¬ 
ished  slavery  the  emancipation  could  be  completed  and 
secured  only  by  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  emanci¬ 
pated  class.  Civil  rights  were  a  mere  mocking  name 
until  political  power  gave  them  substance.  A  year  ago 
Governor  Orr,  of  South  Carolina,  told  us  that  the  rights 
of  the  freedmen  were  safest  in  the  hands  of  their  old 
masters.  “‘Will  you  walk  into  my  parlor?’  said  the  spi¬ 
der  to  the  fly.”  New  Orleans,  Memphis,  and  count¬ 
less  and  constant  crimes  showed  what  that  safety  was. 
Then,  hesitating  no  longer,  the  nation  handed  the  bal¬ 
lot  to  the  freedmen,  and  said,  “  Protect  yourselves !” 
And  now  Governor  Orr  says  that  the  part  of  wisdom 
for  South  Carolina  is  to  cut  loose  from  all  parties,  and 
make  a  cordial  alliance  with  the  colored  citizens.  Gov¬ 
ernor  Orr  knows  that  a  man  with  civil  rights  merely  is 
a  blank  cartridge.  Give  him  the  ballot  and  you  add 
a  bullet  and  make  him  effective.  In  that  section  of 
the  country,  seething  with  old  hatreds  and  wounded 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


*95 

pride,  and  with  its  social  system  upheaved  from  the 
foundation,  no  other  measure  could  have  done  for  real 
pacification  in  a  century  what  the  mere  promise  of  the 
ballot  has  done  in  a  year.  The  one  formidable  peril  in 
the  whole  subject  of  reconstruction  has  been  the  chance 
that  Congress  would  continue  in  the  Southern  States 
the  political  power  in  the  hands  of  a  class,  as  the  re¬ 
port  of  the  committee  proposes  that  we  shall  do  in  New 
York. 

I  do  not  forget  the  progressive  legislation  of  New 
York  in  regard  to  the  rights  of  women.  The  property 
bill  of  i860  and  its  supplement,  according  to  the  New 
York  Tribune,  redeemed  five  thousand  women  from 
pauperism.  In  the  next  year  Illinois  put  women  in 
the  same  position  with  men  so  far  as  property  rights 
and  remedies  are  concerned.  I  mention  these  facts 
with  pleasure,  as  I  read  that  Louis  Napoleon  will, 
under  certain  conditions,  permit  the  French  people  to 
say  what  they  think.  But  if  such  reforms  are  desirable, 
they  would  have  been  sooner  effected  could  women 
have  been  a  positive  political  power.  Upon  this  point 
one  honorable  gentleman  asked  Miss  Anthony  whether 
the  laws  for  both  men  and  women  were  not  constantly 
improving,  and  whether,  therefore,  it  was  not  unfair  to 
attribute  the  character  of  the  laws  about  women  to  the 
fact  that  men  made  them.  The  reply  is  very  evident. 
If  women  alone  made  the  laws,  legislation  for  both  men 
and  women  would  undoubtedly  be  progressive.  Does 
the  honorable  gentleman  think,  therefore,  that  women 
only  should  make  the  laws?  It  is  not  true,  Mr.  Chair¬ 
man,  that  in  the  ordinary  and  honorable  sense  of  the 


196 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


words  women  are  represented.  Laws  are'  made  for 
them  by  another  class  and  upon  the  theories  which 
that  class,  without  the  fear  of  political  opposition,  may 
choose  to  entertain,  and  in  direct  violation  of  the  prin¬ 
ciples  upon  which,  in  their  own  case,  they  tenaciously 
insist.  I  live,  sir,  in  the  county  of  Richmond.  It  has 
a  population  of  some  27,000  persons.  They  own  prop¬ 
erty  and  manage  it.  They  are  taxed  and  pay  their 
taxes,  and  they  fulfil  the  duties  of  citizens  with  aver¬ 
age  fidelity.  But  if  the  committee  had  introduced  a 
clause  into  the  section  they  propose  to  this  effect,  “  Pro¬ 
vided  that  idiots,  lunatics,  persons  under  guardianship, 
felons,  inhabitants  of  the  county  of  Richmond,  and  per¬ 
sons  convicted  of  bribery,  shall  not  be  entitled  to  vote,” 
they  would  not  have  proposed  a  more  monstrous  in¬ 
justice  nor  a  grosser  inconsistency  with  every  funda¬ 
mental  right  and  American  principle  than  in  the  clause 
they  recommend,  and  in  that  case,  sir,  what  do  you  sup¬ 
pose  would  have  been  my  reception  had  I  returned  to 
my  friends  and  neighbors,  and  said  to  them,  “  The  Con¬ 
vention  thinks  that  you  are  virtually  represented  by  the 
voters  of  Westchester  and  Chautauqua  ”  ? 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  have  no  superstition  about  the  ballot. 
I  do  not  suppose  it  would  immediately  right  all  the 
wrongs  of  women,  any  more  than  it  has  righted  all  those 
of  men.  But  what  external  agency  has  righted  so  many  ? 
Here  are  thousands  of  miserable  men  all  around  us ;  but 
they  have  every  path  opened  to  them ;  they  have  their 
advocates ;  they  have  their  votes ;  they  make  the  laws, 
and  at  last  and  at  worst  they  have  their  strong  right 
hands.  And  here  are  thousands  of  miserable  women 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


197 


pricking  back  death  and  dishonor  with  a  little  needle, 
and  now  the  sly  hand  of  science  is  stealing  that  little 
needle  away.  The  ballot  does  not  make  those  men 
happy  nor  respectable  nor  rich  nor  noble.  But  they 
guard  it  for  themselves  with  sleepless  jealousy,  because 
they  know  it  is  the  golden  gate  to  every  opportunity ; 
and  precisely  the  kind  of  advantage  it  gives  to  one  sex  it 
would  give  to  the  other.  It  would  arm  it  with  the  most 
powerful  weapon  known  to  political  society ;  it  would 
maintain  the  natural  balance  of  the  sexes  in  human 
affairs,  and  secure  to  each  fair  play  within  its  sphere. 

But,  sir,  the  committee  tell  us  that  the  suffrage  of 
women  would  be  a  revolutionary  innovation — it  would 
disturb  the  venerable  traditions.  Well,  sir,  about  the 
year  1790  women  were  first  recognized  as  school-teach¬ 
ers  in  Massachusetts.  At  that  time  the  New  England 
“  schoolmarm  ” — and  I  use  the  word  with  affectionate 
respect — was  a  revolutionary  innovation.  She  has  been 
abroad  ever  since,  and  has  been  by  no  means  the  least 
efficient,  but  always  the  most  modest  and  unnoticed,  of 
the  great  civilizing  influences  in  this  country.  Innova¬ 
tion — why,  sir,  when  Sir  Samuel  Romilly  proposed  to 
abolish  the  death  penalty  for  stealing  a  handkerchief, 
the  law  officers  of  the  Crown  said  it  would  endanger  the 
whole  criminal  law  of  England.  When  the  bill  abolish¬ 
ing  the  slave-trade  passed  the  House  of  Lords,  Lord  St. 
Vincent  rose  and  stalked  out,  declaring  that  he  washed 
his  hands  of  the  ruin  of  the  British  empire.  When 
the  Greenwich  pensioners  saw  the  first  steamer  upon 
the  Thames,  they  protested  that  they  did  not  like  the 
steamer,  for  it  was  contrary  to  nature.  When,  at  the 


198 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


close  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  London  had  half  a  mill¬ 
ion  of  people,  there  was  a  fierce  opposition  to  street- 
lamps.  Such  is  the  hostility  of  venerable  traditions  to 
an  increase  of  light.  When  Mr.  Jefferson  learned  that 
New  York  had  explored  the  route  of  a  canal,  he  be¬ 
nignly  regarded  it,  in  the  spirit  of  our  committee,  as 
doubtless  “  defensible  in  theory,”  for  he  said  that  it  was 
“  a  very  fine  project,  and  might  be  executed  a  century 
hence.”  And  fifty-six  years  ago,  Chancellor  Livingston 
wrote  from  this  city  that  the  proposition  of  a  railroad, 
shod  with  iron,  to  move  heavy  weights  four  miles  an 
hour,  was  ingenious,  perhaps  “  theoretically  defensible,” 
but  upon  the  whole  the  road  would  not  be  so  cheap  or 
convenient  as  a  canal.  In  this  country,  sir,  the  vener¬ 
able  traditions  are  used  to  being  disturbed.  America 
was  clearly  designed  to  be  a  disturber  of  traditions,  and 
to  leave  nobler  precedents  than  she  found.  So,  a  few 
months  ago,  what  the  committee  call  a  revolutionary 
innovation  was  proposed  by  giving  the  ballot  to  the 
freedmen  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  The  awful  re¬ 
sults  of  such  a  revolution  were  duly  set  forth  in  one  of 
the  myriad  veto  messages  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  But  they  have  voted.  If  anybody  proposed  to 
disturb  the  election,  it  was  certainly  not  the  new  voters. 
The  election  was  perfectly  peaceful,  and  not  one  of  the 
Presidential  pangs  has  been  justified.  So  with  this  re¬ 
form.  It  is  new,  in  the  extent  proposed.  It  is  as  new 
as  the  harvest  after  the  sowing,  and  it  is  as  natural. 
The  resumption  of  rights,  long  denied  or  withheld, 
never  made  a  social  convulsion.  That  is  produced  by 
refusing  them.  The  West  Indian  slaves  received  their 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


I99 


liberty  praying  upon  their  knees ;  and  the  influence  of 
the  enfranchisement  of  women  will  glide  into  society  as 
noiselessly  as  the  dawn  increases  into  day. 

Or  shall  I  be  told  that  women,  if  not  numerically 
counted  at  the  polls,  do  yet  exert  an  immense  influence 
upon  politics,  and  do  not  really  need  the  ballot?  If  this 
argument  were  seriously  urged,  I  should  suffer  my  eyes 
to  rove  through  this  chamber  and  they  would  show 
the  many  honorable  gentlemen  of  reputed  political  in¬ 
fluence.  May  they,  therefore,  be  properly  and  justly  dis¬ 
franchised?  I  ask  the  honorable  chairman  of  the  com¬ 
mittee  whether  he  thinks  that  a  citizen  should  have  no 
vote  because  he  has  influence?  What  gives  influence? 
Ability,  intelligence,  honesty.  Are  these  to  be  excluded 
from  the  polls  ?  Is  it  only  stupidity,  ignorance,  and  ras¬ 
cality  which  ought  to  possess  political  power?  Or  will 
it  be  said  that  women  do  not  want  the  ballot  and  ought 
to  be  asked?  And  upon  what  principle  ought  they  to 
be  asked  ?  When  natural  rights  or  their  means  of  de¬ 
fence  have  been  immemorially  denied  to  a  large  class, 
does  humanity  or  justice  or  good  sense  require  that  they 
should  be  registered  and  called  to  vote  upon  their  own 
restoration  ?  Why,  Mr.  Chairman,  it  might  as  well  be  said 
that  Jack  the  Giant  Killer  ought  to  have  gravely  asked 
the  captives  in  the  ogre’s  dungeon  whether  they  wished 
to  be  released.  It  must  be  assumed  that  men  and  wom¬ 
en  wish  to  enjoy  their  natural  rights,  as  that  the  eyes 
wish  light  or  the  lungs  an  atmosphere.  Did  we  wait  for 
emancipation  until  the  slaves  petitioned  to  be  free?  No, 
sir ;  all  our  lives  had  been  passed  in  ingenious  and  igno¬ 
minious  efforts  to  sophisticate  and  stultify  ourselves  for 


200 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


keeping  them  chained ;  and  when  war  gave  us  a  legal 
right  to  snap  their  bonds,  we  did  not  ask  them  whether 
they  preferred  to  remain  slaves.  We  knew  that  they 
were  men  and  that  men  by  nature  walk  upright,  and  if 
we  find  them  bent  and  crawling,  we  know  that  the  post¬ 
ure  is  unnatural,  whether  they  may  think  so  or  not.  In 
the  case  of  women  we  acknowledge  that  they  have  the 
same  natural  rights  as  ourselves — we  see  that  they  hold 
property  and  pay  taxes,  and  we  must  of  necessity  sup¬ 
pose  that  they  wish  to  enjoy  every  security  of  those 
rights  that  we  possess.  So  when  in  this  State,  every 
year,  thousands  of  boys  come  of  age,  we  do  not  sol¬ 
emnly  require  them  to  tell  us  whether  they  wish  to 
vote.  We  assume  as  of  course  that  they  do,  and  we  say 
to  them,  “  Go,  and  upon  the  same  terms  with  the  rest  of 
us,  vote  as  you  choose.”  But  gentlemen  say  that  they 
know  a  great  many  women  who  do  not  wish  to  vote, 
who  think  it  is  not  lady -like,  or  whatever  the  proper 
term  may  be.  Well,  sir,  I  have  known  many  men  who 
habitually  abstained  from  politics  because  they  were  so 
“  ungentlemanly,”  and  who  thought  that  no  man  could 
touch  pitch  without  defilement.  Now,  what  would  the 
honorable  gentlemen  who  know  women  who  do  not  wish 
to  vote  have  thought  of  a  proposition  that  I  should  not 
vote,  because  my  neighbors  did  not  wish  to  ?  There 
may  have  been  slaves  who  preferred  to  remain  slaves — 
was  that  an  argument  against  freedom  ?  Suppose  there 
are  a  majority  of  the  women  of  this  State  who  do  not 
wish  to  vote — is  that  a  reason  for  depriving  one  woman 
who  is  taxed  of  her  equal  representation?  or  one  inno¬ 
cent  person  of  the  equal  protection  of  his  life  and  liber- 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


201 


ty?  The  amendment  proposes  no  compulsion  like  the 
old  New  England  law,  which  fined  every  voter  who  did 
not  vote.  If  there  are  citizens  of  the  State  who  think 
it  unlady-like  or  ungentleman-like  to  take  their  part  in 
the  government,  let  them  stay  at  home.  But  do  not,  I 
pray  you,  give  them  authority  to  detain  wiser  and  better 
citizens  from  their  duty. 

But  I  shall  be  told,  in  the  language  of  the  report  of 
the  committee,  that  the  proposition  is  openly  at  war 
with  the  distribution  of  functions  and  duties  between 
the  sexes.  Translated  into  English,  Mr.  Chairman,  this 
means  that  it  is  unwomanly  to  vote.  Well,  sir,  I  know 
that  at  the  very  mention  of  the  political  rights  of 
women  there  arises  in  many  minds  a  dreadful  vision  of 
a  mighty  exodus  of  the  whole  female  world,  in  bloom¬ 
ers  and  spectacles,  from  the  nursery  and  kitchen  to  the 
polls.  It  seems  to  be  thought  that  if  women  practically 
took  part  in  politics,  the  home  would  instantly  be  left  a 
howling  wilderness  of  cradles  and  a  chaos  of  undarned 
stockings  and  buttonless  shirts.  But  how  is  it  with  men  ? 
Do  they  desert  their  workshops,  their  ploughs  and  offices, 
to  pass  their  time  at  the  polls  ?  Is  it  a  credit  to  a  man 
to  be  called  a  professional  politician  ?  The  pursuits  of 
men  in  the  world,  to  which  they  are  directed  by  the 
natural  aptitude  of  sex  and  to  which  they  must  devote 
their  lives,  are  as  foreign  from  political  functions  as 
those  of  women.  To  take  an  extreme  case.  There  is 
nothing  more  incompatible  with  political  duties  in  cook¬ 
ing  and  taking  care  of  children  than  there  is  in  digging 
ditches  or  making  shoes  or  in  any  other  necessary  em¬ 
ployment,  while  in  every  superior  interest  of  society 


202  • 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


growing  out  of  the  family  the  stake  of  women  is  not 
less  than  men,  and  their  knowledge  is  greater. 

In  England  a  woman  who  owns  shares  in  the  East 
India  Company  may  vote.  In  this  country  she  may 
vote,  as  a  stockholder,  upon  a  railroad  from  one  end  of 
the  country  to  another.  But  if  she  sells  her  stock  and 
buys  a  house  with  the  money,  she  has  no  voice  in  the 
laying  out  of  the  road  before  her  door,  which  her  house 
is  taxed  to  keep  and  pay  for.  And  why,  in  the  name  of 
good  sense,  if  a  responsible  human  being  may  vote  upon 
specific  industrial  projects  may  she  not  vote  upon  the 
industrial  regulation  of  the  State  ?  There  is  no  more 
reason  that  men  should  assume  to  decide  participation 
in  politics  to  be  unwomanly,  than  that  women  should 
decide  for  men  that  it  is  unmanly.  It  is  not  our  pre¬ 
rogative  to  keep  women  feminine.  I  think,  sir,  they 
may  be  trusted  to  defend  the  delicacy  of  their  own  sex. 
Our  success  in  managing  ours  has  not  been  so  conspicu¬ 
ous  that  we  should  urgently  desire  more  labor  of  the 
same  kind.  Nature  is  quite  as  wise  as  we.  Whatever 
their  sex  incapacitates  women  from  doing  they  will  not 
do.  Whatever  duty  is  consistent  with  their  sex  and 
their  relation  to  society  they  will  properly  demand  to 
do  until  they  are  permitted. 

When  the  committee  declare  that  voting  is  at  war 
with  the  distribution  of  functions  between  the  sexes, 
what  do  they  mean?  Are  not  women  as  much  inter¬ 
ested  in  good  government  as  men?  Has  the  mother 
less  at  stake  in  equal  laws  honestly  administered  than 
the  father?  There  is  fraud  in  the  legislature;  there  is 
corruption  in  the  courts;  there  are  hospitals  and  tene- 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


203 


ment-  houses  and  prisons;  there  are  gambling -houses 
and  billiard-rooms  and  brothels  ;  there  are  grog-shops 
at  every  corner,  and  I  know  not  what  enormous  pro¬ 
portion  of  crime  in  the  State  proceeds  from  them  ;  there 
are  forty  thousand  drunkards  in  the  State  and  their 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  children.  All  these  things 
are  subjects  of  legislation,  and  under  the  exclusive  leg¬ 
islation  of  men  the  crime  associated  with  all  these 
things  becomes  vast  and  complicated ;  have  the  wives 
and  mothers  and  sisters  of  New  York  less  vital  inter¬ 
est  in  them,  less  practical  knowledge  of  them  and  their 
proper  treatment,  than  the  husbands  and  fathers?  No 
man  is  so  insane  as  to  pretend  it.  Is  there  then  any 
natural  incapacity  in  women  to  understand  politics?  It 
is  not  asserted.  Are  they  lacking  in  the  necessary  in¬ 
telligence?  But  the  moment  that  you  erect  a  stand¬ 
ard  of  intelligence  which  is  sufficient  to  exclude  women 
as  a  sex,  that  moment  most  of  their  amiable  fellow- 
citizens  in  trousers  would  be  disfranchised.  Is  it  that 
they  ought  not  to  go  to  public  political  meetings  ?  But 
we  earnestly  invite  them.  Or  that  they  should  not  go 
to  the  polls  ?  Some  polls,  I  allow,  in  the  larger  cities, 
are  dirty  and  dangerous  places,  and  those  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  police  to  reform.  But  no  decent  man  wishes 
to  vote  in  a  grog-shop,  or  to  have  his  head  broken 
while  he  is  doing  it ;  while  the  mere  act  of  dropping 
a  ballot  in  a  box  is  about  the  simplest,  shortest,  and 
cleanest  that  can  be  done. 

Last  winter  Senator  Frelinghuysen,  repeating,  I  am 

sure  thoughtlessly,  the  common  rhetoric  of  the  question, 

6 

spoke  of  the  high  and  holy  mission  of  women.  But  if 


204 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


people  with  a  high  and  holy  mission  may  innocently  sit 
bare-necked  in  hot  theatres  to  be  studied  through  pocket 
telescopes  until  midnight  by  any  one  who  chooses,  how 
can  their  high  and  holy  mission  be  harmed  by  their 
quietly  dropping  a  ballot  in  a  box?  But  if  women 
vote,  they  must  sit  on  juries.  Why  not?  Nothing  is 
plainer  than  that  thousands  of  women  who  are  tried 
every  year  as  criminals  are  not  tried  by  their  peers. 
And  if  a  woman  is  bad  enough  to  commit  a  heinous 
crime,  must  we  absurdly  assume  that  women  are  too 
good  to  know  that  there  is  such  a  crime?  If  they  may 
not  sit  on  juries,  certainly  they  ought  not  to  be  wit¬ 
nesses.  A  note  in  Howell’s  “  State  Trials,”  to  which 
my  attention  was  drawn  by  one  of  my  distinguished 
colleagues  in  the  Convention,  quotes  from  a  work 
written  near  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  on 
the  Laws  of  Scotland,  by  Sir  George  Mackenzie,  in 
which  he  says,  speaking  of  “  Probation  by  Witnesses,” 
“  The  reason  why  women  are  excluded  from  witnessing 
must  be  either  that  they  are  subject  to  too  much  com¬ 
passion  and  so  ought  not  to  be  more  received  in  crim¬ 
inal  cases  than  in  civil  cases ;  or  else  the  law  was  un¬ 
willing  to  trouble  them  and  thought  it  might  learn 
them  too  much  confidence  and  make  them  subject  to 
too  much  familiarity  with  men  and  strangers,  if  they 
were  necessitated  to  vague  up  and  down  at  all  courts 
upon  all  occasions.”  But  if  too  much  familiarity  with 
men  be  so  pernicious,  are  men  so  pure  that  they  alone 
should  make  laws  for  women,  and  so  honorable  that 
they  alone  should  try  women  for  breaking  them  ?  It 
is  within  a  very  few  years  at  the  Liverpool  Assizes, 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


205 


in  a  case  involving  peculiar  evidence,  that  Mr.  Russell 
said :  “  The  evidence  of  women  is,  in  some  respects, 
superior  to  that  of  men.  Their  power  of  judging  of 
minute  details  is  better,  and  when  there  are  more  than 
two  facts  and  something  be  wanting,  their  intuitions 
supply  the  deficiency.”  “And  precisely  the  qualities 
which  fit  them  to  give  evidence,”  says  Mrs.  Dali,  to 
whom  we  owe  this  fact,  “fit  them  to  sift  and  test  it.” 

But,  the  objectors  continue,  would  you  have  women 
hold  office  ?  If  they  are  capable  and  desirous,  why  not  ? 
They  hold  office  now  most  acceptably.  In  my  imme¬ 
diate  neighborhood  a  postmistress  has  been  so  faithful 
an  officer  for  seven  years  that  when  there  was  a  rumor 
of  her  removal  it  was  a  matter  of  public  concern.  This 
is  a  familiar  instance  in  this  country.  Scott’s  “Anti¬ 
quary  ”  shows  that  a  similar  service  was  not  unknown 
in  Scotland.  In  “Notes  and  Queries,”  ten  years  ago,* 
Mr.  Alexander  Andrews  says,  “It  was  by  no  means  un¬ 
usual  for  females  to  serve  the  office  of  overseer  in  small 
rural  parishes,”  and  a  communication  in  the  same  pub¬ 
lication  f  cites  a  curious  entry  in  the  “  Harleian  Manu¬ 
scripts  ” :  %  “  The  Countess  of  Richmond,  mother  to 
Henry  VII.,  was  a  justice  of  the  peace.  Mr.  Atturney 
said  if  it  was  so,  it  ought  to  have  been  by  commission, 
for  which  he  had  made  many  an  hower  search  for  the 
record,  but  could  never  find  it,  but  he  had  seen  many 
arbitriments  that  were  made  by  her.  Justice  Joanes 
affirmed  that  he  had  often  heard  from  his  mother  of  the 
Lady  Bartlet,  mother  to  the  Lord  Bartlet,  that  she  was 

*  2d  series,  vol.  ii.,  1856,  p.  204.  {  MS.  980,  fol.  153. 

t  1st  series,  vol.  ii.,  1855,  p.  383. 


206 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


a  justice  of  the  peace,  and  did  set  usually  upon  the 
bench  with  the  other  justices  in  Gloucestershire ;  that 
she  was  made  so  by  Queen  Mary,  upon  her  complaint 
to  her  of  the  injuries  she  sustained  by  some  of  that 
county,  and  desiring  for  redress  thereof ;  that  as  she, 
herself,  was  chief  justice  of  all  England,  so  this  lady 
might  be  in  her  own  county,  which  accordingly  the 
Queen  granted.  Another  example  was  alledged  of 

one -  Rowse,  in  Suffolk,  who  usually  at  the  assizes 

and  sessions  there  held,  set  upon  the  bench  among  the 
Justices  gladio  cincta .”  The  Countess  of  Pembroke 
was  hereditary  sheriff  of  Westmoreland,  and  exercised 
her  office.  Henry  VIII.  granted  a  commission  of  in¬ 
quiry,  under  the  great  seal,  to  Lady  Ann  Berkeley, 
who  opened  it  at  Gloucester  and  passed  sentence 
under  it.  Henry  VIII. ’s  daughter,  Elizabeth  Tudor, 
was  Queen  of  England,  in  name  and  in  fact,  during 
the  most  illustrious  epoch  of  English  history.  Was 
Elizabeth  incompetent?  Did  Elizabeth  unsex  herself? 
Or  do  you  say  she  was  an  exceptional  woman  ?  So  she 
was,  but  no  more  an  exceptional  woman  than  Alfred, 
Marcus  Aurelius,  or  Napoleon  were  exceptional  men. 
It  was  held  by  some  of  the  old  English  writers  that  a 
woman  might  serve  in  almost  any  of  the  great  offices  of 
the  kingdom.  And  indeed  if  Victoria  may  deliberate 
in  council  with  her  ministers,  why  may  not  any  intelli¬ 
gent  Englishwoman  deliberate  in  Parliament  or  any 
such  American  woman  in  Congress?  The  whole  his¬ 
tory  of  the  voting  and  office-holding  of  women  shows 
that  whenever  men’s  theories  of  the  relation  of  prop¬ 
erty  to  the  political  franchise,  or  of  the  lineal  succession 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


20  7 


of  the  government,  require  that  women  shall  vote  or 
hold  office,  the  objection  of  impropriety  and  incapacity 
wholly  disappears.  If  it  be  unwomanly  for  a  woman  to 
vote  or  to  hold  office,  it  is  unwomanly  for  Victoria  to 
be  Queen  of  England. 

Surely  if  our  neighbors  had  thought  they  would  be 
better  represented  in  this  Convention  by  certain  women, 
there  is  no  good  reason  why  they  should  have  been 
compelled  to  send  us.  Why  should  I  or  any  person  be 
forbidden  to  select  the  agent  whom  we  think  most  com¬ 
petent  and  truly  representative  of  our  will  ?  There  is  no 
talent  or  training  required  in  the  making  of  laws  which 
is  peculiar  to  the  male  sex.  What  is  needed  is  intelli¬ 
gence  and  experience.  The  rest  is  routine.  The  capacity 
for  making  laws  is  necessarily  assumed  when  women  are 
permitted  to  hold  and  manage  property  and  to  submit 
to  taxation.  How  often  the  woman,  widowed  or  married 
or  single,  is  the  guiding  genius  of  the  family — educating 
the  children,  directing  the  estate,  originating,  counsel¬ 
ling,  deciding.  Is  there  anything  essentially  different  in 
such  duties  and  the  powers  necessary  to  perform  them 
from  the  functions  of  legislation?  In  New  Jersey  the 
Constitution  of  1776  admitted  to  vote  all  inhabitants  of 
a  certain  age,  residence,  and  property.  In  1797,  in  an 
act  to  regulate  elections,  the  ninth  section  provides : 
“  Every  voter  shall  openly  and  in  full  view  deliver  his 
or  her  ballot,  which  shall  be  a  single  written  ticket,  con¬ 
taining  the  names  of  the  persons  for  whom  he  or  she 
votes.”  An  old  citizen  of  New  Jersey  says  that  “  the 
right  was  recognized,  and  very  little  said  or  thought 
about  it  in  any  way.”  But  in  1807  the  suffrage  was 


208 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


restricted  to  white  male  adult  citizens  of  a  certain  age, 
residence,  and  property,  and  in  1844  the  property  qual¬ 
ification  was  abolished.  At  the  hearing  before  the  com¬ 
mittee,  the  other  evening,  a  gentleman  asked  whether 
the  change  of  the  qualification  excluding  women  did  not 
show  that  their  voting  was  found  to  be  inconvenient  or 
undesirable.  Not  at  all.  It  merely  showed  that  the 
male  property-holders  out-voted  the  female.  It  certain¬ 
ly  showed  nothing  as  to  the  right  or  expediency  of  the 
voting  of  women.  Mr.  Douglas,  as  I  said,  had  a  theory 
that  the  white  male  adult  squatters  in  a  territory  might 
decide  whether  the  colored  people  in  the  territory  should 
be  enslaved.  They  might,  indeed,  so  decide,  and,  with 
adequate  power,  they  might  enforce  their  decision.  But 
it  would  prove  very  little  as  to  the  right,  the  expediency, 
or  the  constitutionality  of  slavery  in  a  territory. 

The  truth  is  that  men  deal  with  the  practical  question 
of  female  suffrage  to  suit  their  own  purposes.  About 
twenty-five  years  ago  the  Canadian  government  by  stat¬ 
ute  rigorously  and  in  terms  forbade  women  to  vote. 
But  in  1850,  to  subserve  a  sectarian  purpose,  they  were 
permitted  to  vote  for  school  trustees.  I  am  ashamed  to 
argue  a  point  so  plain.  What  public  affairs  need  in  this 
State  is  “  conscience,”  and  woman  is  the  conscience  of 
the  race.  If  we  in  this  Convention  shall  make  a  wise 
Constitution,  if  the  Legislatures  that  follow  us  in  this 
chamber  shall  purify  the  laws  and  see  that  they  are  hon¬ 
estly  executed,  it  will  be  just  in  the  degree  that  we  shall 
have  accustomed  ourselves  to  the  refined  moral  and 
mental  atmosphere  in  which  women  habitually  converse. 
But  would  you,  seriously,  I  am  asked,  would  you  drag 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


209 


women  down  into  the  mire  of  politics?  No,  sir;  I  would 
have  them  lift  us  out  of  it.  The  duty  of  this  Conven¬ 
tion  is  to  devise  means  for  the  purification  of  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  this  State.  Now,  the  science  of  government 
is  not  an  ignoble  science,  and  the  practice  of  politics  is 
not  necessarily  mean  and  degrading.  If  the  making  and 
administering  of  law  has  become  so  corrupt  as  to  jus¬ 
tify  calling  politics  filthy,  and  a  thing  with  which  no 
clean  hands  can  meddle  without  danger,  may  we  not 
wisely  remember,  as  we  begin  our  work  of  purification, 
that  politics  have  been  wholly  managed  by  men?  How 
can  we  purify  them  ?  Is  there  no  radical  method,  no 
force  yet  untried,  a  power  not  only  of  skilful  checks, 
which  I  do  not  undervalue,  but  of  controlling  character? 
Mr.  Chairman,  if  we  sat  in  this  chamber  with  closed 
windows  until  the  air  became  thick  and  fetid,  should  we 
not  be  fools  if  we  brought  in  deodorizers,  if  we  sprin¬ 
kled  chloride  of  lime  and  burned  assafcetida,  while  we 
disdained  the  great  purifier?  If  we  would  cleanse  the 
foul  chamber  let  us  throw  the  windows  wide  open, 
and  the  sweet  summer  air  will  sweep  all  impurity  away 
and  fill  our  lungs  with  fresher  life.  If  we  would  purge 
politics,  let  us  turn  upon  them  the  great  stream  of  the 
purest  human  influence  we  know. 

But  I  hear  some  one  say,  If  women  vote  they  must 
do  military  duty.  Undoubtedly,  when  a  nation  goes  to 
war  it  may  rightfully  claim  the  service  of  all  its  citi¬ 
zens,  men  and  women.  But  the  question  of  fighting  is 
not  the  blow  merely,  but  its  quality  and  persistence. 
The  important  point  is  to  make  the  blow  effective. 
Did  any  brave  Englishman  who  rode  into  the  jaws  of 
I. — 14 


210 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


death  at  Balaklava  serve  England  on  the  field  more 
truly  than  Florence  Nightingale?  That  which  sustains 
and  serves  and  repairs  the  physical  force  is  just  as 
essential  as  the  force  itself.  Thus  the  law,  in  view  of 
the  moral  service  they  are  supposed  to  render,  excuses 
clergymen  from  the  field,  and  in  the  field  it  details  ten 
per  cent,  of  the  army  to  serve  the  rest,  and  they  do  not 
carry  muskets  nor  fight.  Women,  as  citizens,  have  al¬ 
ways  done  and  always  will  do  that  work  in  the  public 
defence  for  which  their  sex  peculiarly  fits  them,  and 
men  do  no  more.  The  care  of  the  young  warriors,  the 
nameless  and  innumerable  duties  of  the  hospital  and 
home,  are  just  as  essential  to  the  national  safety  as 
fighting  in  the  field.  A  nation  of  men  alone  could  not 
carry  on  a  contest  any  longer  than  a  nation  of  women. 
Each  would  be  obliged  to  divide  its  forces  and  delegate 
half  to  the  duties  of  the  other  sex.  But  while  the  phys¬ 
ical  services  of  war  are  equally  divided  between  the 
sexes,  the  moral  forces  are  stronger  with  women.  It 
was  the  women  of  the  South,  we  are  constantly  and 
doubtless  very  truly  told,  who  sustained  the  rebellion, 
and  certainly,  without  the  women  of  the  North  the  gov¬ 
ernment  had  not  been  saved.  From  the  first  moment 
to  the  last,  in  all  the  roaring  cities,  in  the  remote  val¬ 
leys,  in  the  deep  woods,  on  the  country  hillsides,  on 
the  open  prairie,  wherever  there  were  wives,  mothers, 
sisters,  lovers,  there  were  the  busy  fingers  which,  by  day 
and  night,  for  four  long  years,  like  the  great  forces  of 
spring-time  and  harvest,  never  failed.  The  mother 
paused  only  to  bless  her  sons,  eager  for  the  battle ;  the 
wife  to  kiss  her  children’s  father  as  he  went ;  the  sister 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


2  1 1 


smiled  upon  the  brother,  and  prayed  for  the  lover  who 
marched  away.  Out  of  how  many  hundreds  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  homes  and  hearts  they  went  who  never  re¬ 
turned  ;  but  these  homes  were  both  the  inspiration  and 
the  consolation  of  the  field.  They  nerved  the  arm  that 
struck  for  them.  When  the  son  and  the  husband  fell 
in  the  wild  storm  of  battle,  the  brave  woman  heart 
broke  in  silence,  but  the  busy  fingers  did  not  falter. 
When  the  comely  brother  and  lover  were  tortured  into 
idiocy  and  despair,  that  woman  heart  of  love  kept  the 
man’s  faith  steady,  and  her  unceasing  toil  repaired  his 
wasted  frame.  It  was  not  love  of  the  soldier  only, 
great  as  that  was;  it  was  knowledge  of  the  cause.  It 
was  that  supreme  moral  force  operating  through  innu¬ 
merable  channels,  like  the  sunshine  in  nature,  without 
which  successful  war  would  have  been  impossible.  There 
are  thousands  and  thousands  of  these  women  who  ask 
for  a  voice  in  the  government  they  have  so  defended. 
Shall  we  refuse  them  ?  I  appeal  again  to  my  honorable 
friend  the  chairman  of  the  committee.  He  has  made 
the  land  ring  with  his  cry  of  universal  suffrage  and  uni¬ 
versal  amnesty.  Suffrage  and  amnesty  to  whom?  To 
those  who  sought  to  smother  the  government  in  the 
blood  of  its  noblest  citizens,  to  those  who  ruined  the 
happy  homes  and  broke  the  faithful  hearts  of  which  I 
spoke.  Sir,  I  am  not  condemning  his  cry.  I  am  not 
opposing  his  policy.  I  have  no  more  thirst  for  ven¬ 
geance  than  he  has,  and  quite  as  anxiously  as  my  honor¬ 
able  friend  do  I  wish  to  see  the  harvests  of  peace  wav¬ 
ing  over  the  battle-fields.  But,  sir,  here  is  a  New  York 
mother  who  trained  her  son  in  fidelity  to  God  and  to 


212 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


his  country.  When  that  country  called,  they  answered. 
Mother  and  son  gave,  each  after  his  kind,  their  whole 
service  to  defend  her.  By  the  sad  fate  of  war  the  boy 
is  thrown  into  the  ghastly  den  at  Andersonville.  Mad 
with  thirst  he  crawls  in  the  pitiless  sun  towards  a  mud¬ 
dy  pool.  He  reaches  the  dead-line,  and  is  shot  by  the 
guard — murdered  for  fidelity  to  his  country.  “  I  de¬ 
mand  amnesty  for  that  guard,  I  demand  that  he  shall 
vote,”  cries  the  honorable  chairman  of  the  committee. 
I  do  not  say  that  it  is  an  unwise  demand.  But  I  ask 
him,  I  ask  you,  sir,  I  ask  every  honorable  and  patriotic 
man  in  this  State,  upon  what  conceivable  grounds  of 
justice,  expediency,  or  common-sense  shall  we  give  the 
ballot  to  the  New  York  boy’s  murderer  and  refuse  it  to 
his  mother? 

I  have  thus  stated  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  essential 
reasonableness  of  the  amendment  which  I  have  offered. 
It  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone,  but  to  be  united 
with  woman  in  the  creation  of  human  society ;  their 
rights  and  interests  in  its  government  are  identical,  nor 
can  the  highest  and  truest  development  of  society  be 
reasonably  conceived  so  long  as  one  sex  assumes  to 
prescribe  limits  to  the  scope  and  functions  of  the 
other.  The  test  of  civilization  is  the  position  of 
women.  Where  they  are  wholly  slaves  man  is  wholly 
barbarous ;  and  the  measure  of  progress  from  barbar¬ 
ism  to  civilization  is  the  recognition  of  their  equal 
right  with  man  to  an  unconstrained  development. 
Therefore  when  Mr.  Mill  unrolls  his  petition  in  Par¬ 
liament  to  secure  the  political  equality  of  women,  it 
bears  the  names  of  those  English  men  and  women 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SUFFRAGE 


213 


whose  thoughts  foretell  the  course  of  civilization. 
The  measure  which  the  report  of  the  committee  de¬ 
clares  to  be  radically  revolutionary  and  perilous  to  the 
very  functions  of  sex,  is  described  by  the  most  saga¬ 
cious  of  living  political  philosophers  as  reasonable,  con¬ 
servative,  necessary,  and  inevitable ;  and  he  obtains  for 
it  seventy- three  votes  in  the  same  House  in  which 
out  of  about  the  same  whole  number  of  voters  Charles 
James  Fox,  the  idol  of  the  British  Whigs,  used  to  be 
able  to  rally  only  forty  votes  against  the  policy  of  Pitt. 
The  dawn  in  England  will  soon  be  day  here.  Before 
the  American  principle  of  equal  rights  barrier  after 
barrier  in  the  path  of  human  progress  falls.  If  we  are 
still  far  from  its  full  comprehension  and  farther  from 
perfect  conformity  to  its  law,  it  is  in  that  only  like  the 
spirit  of  Christianity,  to  whose  full  glory  even  Christen¬ 
dom  but  slowly  approaches.  From  the  heat  and  tumult 
of  our  politics  we  can  still  lift  our  eyes  to  the  eternal 
light  of  that  principle ;  can  see  that  the  usurpation  of 
sex  is  the  last  form  of  caste  that  lingers  in  our  society ; 
that  in  America  the  most  humane  thinker  is  the  most 
practical  man,  and  the  organizer  of  justice  the  most 
sagacious  statesman. 


VIII 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 

AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  AMERICAN  WOMAN-SUFFRAGE  ASSO¬ 
CIATION,  AT  STEINWAY  HALL,  NEW  YORK,  MAY  12,  1870 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen  : — It  is  pleasant  to  see  this 
large  assembly  and  this  generous  spirit,  for  it  is  by  pre¬ 
cisely  such  meetings  as  this  that  public  opinion  is  first 
awakened  and  public  action  is  at  last  secured.  Our 
question  is  essentially  an  American  question.  It  con¬ 
cerns  women,  but  it  is  not  one  of  chivalry  nor  of  gal¬ 
lantry.  It  is  a  demand  for  equal  rights,  and  will  there¬ 
fore  be  heard.  Whenever  a  free  and  intelligent  people 
asks  any  question  involving  human  rights  or  liberty  or 
development,  it  will  ask  louder  and  louder,  until  it  is 
answered.  The  conscience  of  this  nation  sits  in  the  way 
like  a  sphinx,  proposing  its  riddle  of  true  democracy. 
Presidents  and  parties,  conventions,  caucuses,  and  can¬ 
didates,  failing  to  guess  it,  are  remorselessly  consumed. 
Forty  years  ago  that  conscience  asked,  “  Do  men  have 
fair  play  in  this  country?”  A  burst  of  contemptuous 
laughter  was  the  reply.  “  Fair  play!  It  is  the  very 
country  of  fair  play  ”  ;  and  the  indignant  land,  drunk 
with  prosperity  and  ease,  turned  its  back.  Louder  and 
louder  grew  that  question,  and  the  land  opened  its  eyes. 
Louder  and  louder !  and  it  opened  its  ears.  Louder ! 
until  it  was  one  great  thunderburst,  absorbing  all  other 


2l8 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


questions ;  and  then  the  country  saw  that  its  very  life 
was  bound  up  in  the  answer,  and  springing  to  its  feet, 
alive  in  every  nerve,  with  one  hand  it  snapped  the  slave’s 
chain,  and  with  the  other  welded  the  Union  into  a  na¬ 
tion — the  pledge  of  equal  liberty. 

That  same  conscience  sits  in  the  way  to-day.  It  asks 
another  question — “  Do  women  have  fair  play  in  this 
country?”  As  before,  a  sneer  or  a  smile  of  derision 
may  ripple  from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other ;  but 
that  question  will  swell  louder  and  louder,  until  it  is  an¬ 
swered  by  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  every  citizen,  and 
by  the  perfect  vindication  of  the  American  fundamental 
principle,  that  “governments  derive  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed.”  By  its  very  nature, 
however,  the  progress  of  this  reform  will  differ  from 
every  other  political  movement.  Behind  every  demand 
for  the  enlargement  of  the  suffrage  hitherto  there  was 
always  a  threat.  It  involved  possible  anarchy  and  blood. 
When  the  question  agitated  England,  in  1832,  Sir  Will¬ 
iam  Napier  said  that  the  country  quivered  on  the  verge 
of  civil  war.  The  voice  of  the  disfranchised  class  was 
muttering  thunder  around  the  horizon,  and  by  the  light¬ 
ning  of  its  eyes  the  British  statesmen  read  the  necessity 
of  speedy  action.  But  this  reform  hides  no  menace.  It 
lies  wholly  in  the  sphere  of  reason.  It  is  a  demand  for 
justice  as  the  best  political  policy;  an  appeal  for  equal¬ 
ity  of  rights  among  citizens  as  the  best  security  of  the 
common  welfare.  It  is  a  plea  for  the  introduction  of 
all  the  mental  and  moral  forces  of  society  into  the  work 
of  government.  It  is  an  assertion  that  in  the  regula¬ 
tion  of  society  no  class  and  no  interest  can  be  safely 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


219 


spared  from  a  direct  responsibility.  It  encounters,  in¬ 
deed,  the  most  ancient  traditions,  the  most  subtle  soph¬ 
istry  of  men’s  passions  and  prejudices.  But  there  was 
never  any  great  wrong  righted  that  was  not  intrenched 
in  sophistry — that  did  not  plead  an  immemorial  antiq¬ 
uity  and  what  it  called  the  universal  consent  and  “  in¬ 
stinct  ”  of  mankind. 

As  Sidney  Smith  said  sixty  years  ago,  in  urging  the 
claims  of  women  to  a  higher  education,  “  Nothing  is 
more  common  or  more  stupid  than  to  take  the  actual 
for  the  possible — to  believe  that  all  which  is  is  all  that 
can  be ;  first,  to  laugh  at  every  proposed  deviation  from 
practice  as  impossible ,  then,  when  it  is  carried  into  ef¬ 
fect,  to  be  astonished  that  it  did  not  take  place  before.” 
That  I  suppose  is  the  reason  why — now  that  the  Fif¬ 
teenth  Amendment  is  officially  adopted — we  discover 
that  there  were  so  many  original  abolitionists,  and 
while  we  are  piously  grateful  for  their  number,  we  can 
only  wonder  that,  being  so  many,  they  did  not  earlier 
do  their  work. 

I  say  that  the  movement  is  a  plea  for  justice,  and  I 
assert  that  the  equal  rights  of  women,  not  as  citizens, 
but  as  human  beings,  have  never  been  acknowledged. 
There  is  no  audacity  so  insolent,  no  tyranny  so  wanton, 
no  inhumanity  so  revolting,  as  the  spirit  which  says  to 
any  human  being,  or  to  any  class  of  human  beings, 
“You  shall  be  developed  just  so  far  as  we  choose, 
and  so  fast  as  we  choose,  and  your  mental  and  moral 
life  shall  be  subject  to  our  pleasure!”  and,  as  Mrs. 
Howe  has  said,  this  is  what  men  have  always  said  to 


women. 


220 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


Gibbon,  certainly  as  profound  a  student  of  the  history 
of  the  race  as  any  that  we  know,  says  distinctly,  “  that 
the  wisest  or  the  strongest  of  the  sexes  has  always 
usurped  the  cares  and  duties  of  the  State,  and  has  con¬ 
fined  the  other  to  the  cares  and  pleasures  of  domestic 
life.”  And  Montaigne,  the  shrewdest  and  most  passion¬ 
less  of  the  observers  and  critics  of  society,  says,  “Wom¬ 
en  are  not  at  all  to  blame  when  they  refuse  the  rules  of 
life  that  are  introduced  into  the  world,  forasmuch  as  the 
men  made  them  without  their  consent.” 

This  is  true  of  every  condition  of  society  and  of  every 
period.  Edward  Lear,  the  artist,  travelling  in  Greece, 
says  that  he  was  one  day  jogging  along  with  an  Alta- 
nian  peasant,  who  said  to  him,  “  Women  are  really  bet¬ 
ter  than  donkeys  for  carrying  burdens,  but  not  so  good 
as  mules.”  This  was  the  honest  opinion  of  barbarism — 
the  honest  feeling  of  Greece  to-day. 

You  say  that  the  peasant  was  uncivilized.  Very  well. 
Go  back  to  the  age  of  Pericles.  It  is  the  high  noon  of 
Greek  civilization.  It  is  Athens — “  the  eye  of  Greece — 
mother  of  arts.”  There  stands  the  great  orator — him¬ 
self  incarnate  Greece  —  speaking  the  oration  over  the 
Athenian  dead.  “  The  greatest  glory  of  woman,”  he 
says,  “  is  to  be  the  least  talked  of  among  men.”  So 
said  Pericles  when  he  lived.  Had  Pericles  lived  to-day 
he  would  have  agreed  that  to  be  talked  of  among  men 
as  Miss  Martineau  and  Florence  Nightingale  are,  as 
Mrs.  Somerville  and  Maria  Mitchell  are,  is  as  great  a 
glory  as  to  be  the  mother  of  the  Gracchi.  Women  in 
Greece,  the  mothers  of  Greece,  were  an  inferior  and  de¬ 
graded  class.  And  Grote  sums  up  their  whole  condition 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


221 


when  he  says,  “  Everything  which  concerned  their  lives, 
their  happiness,  or  their  rights,  was  determined  for  them 
by  male  relatives,  and  they  seem  to  have  been  destitute 
of  all  mental  culture  and  refinement.” 

These  were  the  old  Greeks.  Will  you  have  Rome? 
The  chief  monument  of  Roman  civilization  is  its  law — 
which  underlies  our  own ;  and  Buckle  quotes  the  great 
commentator  on  that  law  as  saying  that  it  was  the  dis¬ 
tinction  of  the  Roman  law  that  it  treated  women  not  as 
persons,  but  as  things.  Or  go  to  the  most  ancient  civili¬ 
zation — to  China,  which  was  old  when  Greece  and  Rome 
were  young.  The  famous  French  Jesuit  missionary, 
Abb6  Hue,  mentions  that  there  is  in  China  a  class  of 
/women  who  hold  that  if  they  are  only  true  to  certain 
vows  during  this  life,  they  shall,  as  a  reward,  change 
their  form  after  death  and  return  to  earth  as  men.  This 
distinguished  traveller  also  says  that  he  was  one  day 
talking  with  a  certain  Master  Ting,  a  very  shrewd  China¬ 
man,  whom  he  was  endeavoring  to  convert.  “  But,” 
said  Ting,  “what  is  the  special  object  of  your  preaching 
Christianity?”  “Why.  to  convert  you  and  save  your 
soul,”  said  the  abb£.  “Well,  then,  why  do  you  try  to 
convert  the  women?”  asked  Master  Ting.  “To  save 
their  souls,”  said  the  missionary.  “  But  women  have  no 
souls,”  said  Master  Ting;  “you  can’t  expect  to  make 
Christians  of  women  ” — and  he  was  so  delighted  with 
the  idea  that  he  went  out  shouting,  “  Hi !  hi !  now  I 
shall  go  home  and  tell  my  wife  she  has  a  soul,  and  I 
guess  she  will  laugh  as  loudly  as  I  do !” 

Such  were  these  three  old  civilizations.  Do  you  think 
we  can  disembarrass  ourselves  of  history?  Our  civiliza- 


222 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


tion  grows  from  roots  that  lie  deep  in  the  remotest 
past ;  and  our  life,  proud  as  we  are  of  it,  is  bound  up 
with  that  of  Greece  and  Rome.  Do  you  think  the  spirit 
of  our  society  is  wholly  different?  Let  us  see.  It  was 
my  good  fortune,  only  a  few  weeks  ago,  to  be  invited  to 
address  the  students  of  the  Vassar  College  at  Pough¬ 
keepsie  ;  which  you  will  remember  is  devoted  exclusive¬ 
ly  to  the  higher  education  of  women.  As  I  stood  in 
those  ample  halls,  and  thought  of  that  studious  house¬ 
hold,  of  the  observatory  and  its  occupants,  it  seemed  to 
me  that,  like  the  German  naturalist,  who,  wandering  in 
the  valley  of  the  Amazon,  came  suddenly  upon  the  Vic¬ 
toria  Regia — the  finest  blossom  on  the  globe — so  there, 
in  the  valley  of  the  Hudson,  I  had  come  upon  one  of 
the  finest  flowers  of  our  civilization.  But  in  the  midst 
of  my  enthusiasm  I  was  told  by  the  president  that  this 
was  the  first  fully  endowed  college  for  women  in  the 
world  ;  and  from  that  moment  I  was  alarmed.  From 
behind  every  door,  every  tree,  I  expected  to  see  good 
Master  Ting  springing  out  with  his  “  Hi  !  hi !  you  laugh 
at  us  Chinese  barbarians ;  you  call  yourselves  in  Amer¬ 
ica  the  head  of  civilization ;  you  claim  that  the  glory  of 
your  civilization  is  your  estimate  of  women ;  you  sneer 
at  us  Chinese  for  belittling  women’s  souls  and  squeez¬ 
ing  their  feet.  Who  belittle  their  capacities  ?  Who 
squeeze  their  minds?”  We  must  confess  it.  The  old 
theory  of  the  subservience  of  women  still  taints  our  civ¬ 
ilization.  As  Goethe  in  his  famous  morphological  gen¬ 
eralization  showed  that  every  part  of  the  inflorescence 
of  plants,  the  stamens  and  pistils,  the  corolla,  the  bracts, 
are  all  but  modifications  of  the  leaf,  so  I  think  it  would 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


223 


not  be  difficult  to  show  that  our  view  of  women,  greatly 
improved  as  it  is,  is  but  a  modification  of  the  old  doc¬ 
trine. 

Within  the  last  fortnight  an  advocate,  pleading  for 
his  client  before  a  jury,  spoke  of  him  as  a  man  who 
owned  his  wife !  Nor  have  I  seen  a  single  word  of  com¬ 
ment  or  surprise  in  the  press  of  this  city.  Take  any 
familiar  illustration  of  the  same  feeling.  You  open 
your  morning  paper,  and  read  that  on  the  previous 
evening  there  was  a  meeting  of  intelligent  and  expe¬ 
rienced  women,  with  some  that  were  not  so,  which  is 
true  of  all  general  meetings  of  men  and  women ;  and 
these  persons  demanded  the  same  liberty  of  choice  and 
an  equal  opportunity  with  all  other  members  of  society. 
As  we  read  the  report  we  see  that  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  extravagant  rhetoric  and  weak  argument  and 
sentimental  appeal,  which  only  shows  more  and  more 
that  it  was  exactly  like  the  public  meetings  of  men. 
If  only  those  persons  could  properly  hold  meetings 
and  speak  in  public  who  talk  nothing  but  reason  and 
common -sense,  the  flood-gates  of  popular  oratory  in 
America  would  be  very  suddenly  dammed  up.  But  if 
it  is  permitted  to  human  beings  to  demand  what  is 
rational,  even  in  a  foolish  way,  there  would  seem  to  be 
nothing  very  irrational  in  the  claim  that  equal  liberty 
and  opportunity  of  development  shall  be  secured  to 
every  member  of  society.  But  the  report  of  the  meet¬ 
ing  is  received  with  a  shout  of  derisive  laughter  that 
echoes  through  the  press  and  through  private  conver¬ 
sation.  Gulliver  did  not  take  the  Lilliputians  on  his 
hands  and  look  at  them  with  more  utter  contempt 


224 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


than  the  political  class  of  this  country,  to  which  the 
men  in  this  hall  belong,  take  up  these  women  and 
look  askance  at  them  with  infinite,  amused  disdain. 

But  in  the  very  next  column  of  the  same  morning  pa¬ 
per  we  find  another  report,  describing  a  public  dinner,  at 
which  men  only  wrere  present.  And  we  read  that,  after 
the  great  orators  had  made  their  great  speeches,  in  the 
course  of  which  they  complimented  woman  so  prettily, 
to  the  delight  of  the  few  privileged  ladies  who  stood  be¬ 
hind  the  screens,  or  looked  over  the  balcony,  or  peeped 
in  through  the  cracks  of  the  windows  and  doors ;  and 
when  the  great  orators  had  retired  with  the  president, 
amid  universal  applause,  the  first  vice-president  took 
the  head  of  the  table,  punch  was  brought  in,  and  well 
towards  morning,  when  the  “  army  ”  and  “  navy  ”  and 
“the  press”  and  the  “Common  Council”  had  been 
toasted  and  drunk,  with  three  times  three,  and  Richard 
Swiveller,  Esq.,  had  sung  his  celebrated  song,  “  Queen 
of  my  soul !”  the  last  regular  toast  was  proposed — 
“Woman — Heaven’s  last,  best  gift  to  man,”  which  was 
received  with  tumultuous  enthusiasm,  the  whole  com¬ 
pany  rising  and  cheering,  the  band  playing  “  Will  you 
come  to  Kelvin  grove,  bonnie  lassie,  O?”  and,  in  re¬ 
sponse  to  a  unanimous  call,  some  gallant  and  chivalric 
editor  replied  in  a  strain  of  pathetic  and  humorous  elo¬ 
quence,  during  which  many  of  the  company  were  ob¬ 
served  to  shed  tears  or  laugh  or  embrace  their  neigh¬ 
bors  ;  after  which  those  of  the  company  who  were  able 
rose  from  table,  and  hallooing  “We  won’t  go  home  till 
morning !”  stumbled  along  their  way  home. 

This  report  is  not  read  with  great  derision  or  laughter. 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


225 


It  is  not  felt  that  by  this  performance  women  have 
been  insulted  and  degraded.  Gulliver  does  not  take 
these  men  on  his  hands,  and  smile  or  sneer  at  them 
as  unmanly  and  vulgar ;  and  these  very  gentlemen 
who  took  part  in  the  dinner,  and  who  —  thanks  to 
these  gentlemen  at  this  table  [the  reporters’  table] — 
read,  the  very  next  morning,  with  profound  complacen¬ 
cy,  the  report  of  their  evening’s  proceedings,  presently 
turn  to  the  column  in  which  the  report  of  the  woman’s 
meeting  is  recorded,  and  instantly  rail  at  the  shameless 
women  who  renounce  their  sex,  and  immodestly  forget 
the  sphere  to  which  God  had  appointed  them.  And 
just  here,  in  this  feeling,  is  the  spring  of  the  latent  hos¬ 
tility — the  jesting  indifference  to  the  question.  It  is 
that  political  enfranchisement  is  not  considered  neces¬ 
sary  to  the  discharge  of  those  duties  which  men  choose 
to  regard  as  the  proper  duties  of  women.  I  know  of 
no  subject  upon  which  so  much  intolerable  nonsense 
has  been  talked  and  written  and  sung  and,  above  all — 
saving  the  presence  of  our  President,  Mr.  Beecher — 
preached,  as  the  question  of  the  true  sphere  of  woman, 
and  of  what  is  feminine  and  what  is  not,  as  if  men  nec¬ 
essarily  knew  all  about  it. 

Here,  at  this  moment,  in  this  audience,  I  have  no 
doubt  there  is  many  a  man  who  is  exclaiming  with  fer¬ 
vor,  “  Home,  the  heaven-appointed  sphere  of  woman.” 
Very  well.  I  don’t  deny  it,  but  how  do  you  know  it? 
How  can  you  know  it?  There  is  but  one  law  by  which 
any  sphere  can  be  determined,  and  that  is  perfect  liber¬ 
ty  of  development.  If  a  man  says  to  me  that  it  is  the 
nature  of  molten  lead  to  run  into  bullets,  and  I  know 

I- — 15 


226 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


nothing  about  lead,  I  may  believe  him  until  I  suddenly 
detect  a  bullet-mould  in  his  pocket.  Then  I  see  that  it 
is  the  interest  of  that  man  that'  molten  lead  should  run 
into  bullets ;  and  what  he  calls  the  nature  of  lead  is 
merely  his  own  advantage.  So  I  look  into  history  and 
into  the  society  around  me,  and  I  see  that  the  position 
of  women  which  is  most  agreeable  upon  the  whole  to 
men  is  that  which  they  call  the  “  heaven  -appointed 
sphere  ”  of  woman.  It  may  or  may  not  be  so ;  all  that 
I  can  see  thus  far  is  that  men  choose  to  have  it  so.  Or 
another  gentleman  remarks  that  it  is  a  beautiful  ordi¬ 
nance  of  Providence  that  pear-trees  should  grow  like 
vines.  And  when  I  say,  “Is  it  so?”  he  takes  me  into 
his  garden,  and  shows  me  a  poor,  tortured  pear-tree, 
trained  upon  a  trellis.  Then  I  see  that  it  is  the  beau¬ 
tiful  design  of  Providence  that  pear-trees  should  grow 
like  vines,  precisely  as  Providence  ordains  that  Chinese 
women  shall  have  small  feet,  and  that  the  powdered 
sugar  we  buy  at  the  grocer’s  shall  be  half  ground  rice. 
These  philosophers  might  as  wisely  inform  us  that  Prov¬ 
idence  ordains  Christian  saints  to  be  chops  and  steaks, 
and  then  point  us  to  St.  Lawrence  upon  his  gridiron. 

You  see  these  flowers  upon  this  table.  If  your  good- 
fortune  takes  you  beyond  the  city  at  this  moment  you 
will  see  them  everywhere.  May-day  is  but  just  gone 
by;  and  the  fields,  the  woods,  the  river-banks,  renew 
their  summer  splendor.  Now,  if  ever,  you  understand 
the  exquisite  music  of  Shakespeare’s  song : 

“  Hark !  hark !  the  lark  at  heaven’s  gate  sings, 

And  Phoebus  'gins  arise; 

His  steeds  to  water  at  those  springs 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN  22J 

On  chalic’d  flowers  that  lies ; 

And  winking  Mary-buds  begin 
To  ope  their  golden  eyes.” 

Has  nature  ordained  that  the  lark  shall  rise  fluttering 
and  singing  to  the  sun  in  spring?  But  how  should  we 
ever  know  it  if  he  were  prisoned  in  a  cage  with  wires  of 
gold  never  so  delicate,  or  tied  with  a  silken  string  how¬ 
ever  slight  and  soft  ?  Is  it  the  nature  of  flowers  to  open 
to  the  south  wind?  How  could  we  know  it  but  that, 
unconstrained  by  art,  their  winking  eyes  respond  to 
that  soft  breath?  In  like  manner,  what  determines  the 
sphere  of  any  morally  responsible  being  but  perfect  lib¬ 
erty  of  choice  and  liberty  of  development?  Take  those 
away,  and  you  have  taken  away  the  possibility  of  deter¬ 
mining  the  sphere.  How  do  I  know  my  sphere  as  a 
man  but  by  repelling  everything  that  would  arbitrarily 
restrict  my  choice?  How  can  you  know  yours  as  wom¬ 
en  but  by  obedience  to  the  same  law? 

When  men  gravely  assemble  to  assert  their  rights 
and  their  claims  to  what  they  feel  to  be  justly  theirs — 
to  the  widest  personal  liberty,  to  the  amplest  educa¬ 
tion,  to  the  pursuit  of  every  honorable  profession,  to  an 
equal  share  in  the  political  control  of  society,  to  do,  in 
fact,  whatever  God  has  given  them  the  will  and  the 
power  innocently  to  do,  can  you  conceive  of  anything 
more  comical  than  a  sudden  protest  from  women  that 
they  are  forgetting  their  sphere — deserting  the  duties 
which  Providence  had  assigned  them — and  becoming 
unmanly  and  vulgar? 

There  is  something  quite  as  comical,  and  that  is  men 
saying  it  to  women.  It  is  not  the  business  of  either 


228 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


sex  to  theorize  about  the  sphere  of  the  other.  It  is 
the  duty  of  each  to  secure  the  liberty  of  both.  Give 
women,  for  instance,  every  opportunity  of  education  that 
men  have.  If  there  are  some  branches  of  knowledge 
improper  for  them  to  acquire — some  which  are  in  their 
nature  unwomanly — they  will  know  it  a  thousand-fold 
better  than  men.  And  if,  having  opened  the  college, 
there  be  some  woman  in  whom  the  love  of  learning  ex¬ 
tinguishes  all  other  love,  then  the  heaven -appointed 
sphere  of  that  woman  is  not  the  nursery.  It  may  be 
the  laboratory,  the  library,  the  observatory ;  it  may  be 
the  platform  or  the  Senate.  And  if  it  be  either  of 
these,  shall  we  say  that  education  has  unsphered  and 
unsexed  her?  On  the  contrary,  it  has  enabled  that 
woman  to  ascertain  so  far  exactly  what  God  meant 
her  to  do. 

It  is  not  the  duty  of  men  to  keep  women  ignorant 
that  they  may  continue  to  be  women.  But  they  have 
as  much  right  to  restrict  their  liberty  of  choice  in  edu¬ 
cation  as  in  any  other  direction. 

The  woman’s- rights  movement  is  the  simple  claim 
that  the  same  opportunity  and  liberty  that  a  man  has 
in  civilized  society  shall  be  extended  to  the  woman  who 
stands  at  his  side — equal  or  unequal  in  special  powers, 
but  an  equal  member  of  society.  She  must  prove  her 
power  as  he  proves  his.  When  Rosa  Bonheur  paints  a 
vigorous  and  admirable  picture  of  Normandy  horses, 
she  proves  that  she  has  a  hundred -fold  more  right  to 
do  it  than  scores  of  botchers  and  bunglers  in  color  who 
wear  coats  and  trousers,  and  whose  right,  therefore,  no¬ 
body  questions.  When  the  Misses  Blackwell  or  Miss 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN  229 

Zachyzewska  or  Miss  Hunt  or  Miss  Preston  or  Miss 
Avery,  accomplishing  themselves  in  medicine,  with  a 
firm  hand  and  a  clear  brain  carry  the  balm  of  life  to 
suffering  men,  women,  and  children,  it  is  as  much  their 
right  to  do  it — as  much  their  sphere — as  it  is  that  of 
any  long-haired,  sallow,  dissipated  boy  in  spectacles, 
who  hisses  them  as  they  go  upon  their  holy  mission. 

And  so  when  Joan  of  Arc  follows  God  and  leads  the 
army ;  when  the  Maid  of  Saragossa  loads  and  fires  the 
cannon ;  when  Mrs.  Stowe  makes  her  pen  the  heaven- 
appealing  tongue  of  an  outraged  race ;  when  Grace  Dar¬ 
ling  and  Ida  Lewis,  pulling  their  boats  through  the  piti¬ 
less  waves,  save  fellow-creatures  from  drowning ;  when 
Mrs.  Patten,  the  captain’s  wife,  at  sea  —  her  husband 
lying  helplessly  ill  in  his  cabin  —  puts  everybody  aside, 
and  herself  steers  the  ship  to  port,  do  you  ask  me 
whether  these  are  not  exceptional  women?  I  am  a 
man  and  you  are  women ;  but  Florence  Nightingale, 
demanding  supplies  for  the  sick  soldiers  in  the  Crimea, 
and,  when  they  are  delayed  by  red-tape,  ordering  a  file 
of  soldiers  to  break  down  the  doors  and  bring  them, 
— which  they  do,  for  the  brave  love  bravery — seems  to 
me  quite  as  womanly  as  the  loveliest  girl  in  the  land, 
dancing  at  the  gayest  ball  in  a  dress  of  which  the  em¬ 
broidery  is  the  pinched  lines  of  starvation  in  another 
girl’s  face,  and  whose  pearls  are  the  tears  of  despair  in 
her  eyes.  Jenny  Lind  enchanting  the  heart  of  a  nation ; 
Anna  Dickinson  pleading  for  the  equal  liberty  of  her 
sex;  Lucretia  Mott  publicly  bearing  her  testimony 
against  the  sin  of  slavery,  are  doing  what  God,  by  his 
great  gifts  of  eloquence  and  song,  appointed  them  to 


230 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


do.  And  whatever  generous  and  noble  duty,  either  in 
a  private  or  a  public  sphere,  God  gives  any  woman  the 
will  and  the  power  to  do,  that,  and  that  only,  for  her,  is 
feminine. 

But  have  women,  then,  no  sphere  as  women?  Un¬ 
doubtedly  they  have,  as  men  have  a  sphere  as  men.  If 
a  woman  is  a  mother,  God  gives  her  certain  affections, 
and  cares  springing  from  them,  which  we  may  be  very 
sure  she  will  not  forget,  and  to  which,  just  in  the  degree 
that  she  is  a  true  woman,  she  will  be  fondly  faithful. 
We  need  not  think  that  it  is  necessary  to  fence  her  in, 
nor  to  suppose  that  she  would  try  to  evade  these  du¬ 
ties  and  responsibilities  if  perfect  liberty  were  given  her. 
As  Sydney  Smith  said  of  education,  we  need  not  fear 
that,  if  girls  study  Greek  and  mathematics,  mothers  will 
desert  their  infants  for  quadratic  equations  or  verbs 
in  mu 

But  the  sphere  of  the  family  is  not  the  sole  sphere 
either  of  men  or  women.  They  are  not  only  parents, 
they  are  human  beings,  with  genius,  talents,  aspirations, 
ambition.  They  are  also  members  of  the  State,  and 
from  the  very  equality  of  the  parental  function  which 
perpetuates  the  State,  they  are  equally  interested  in  its 
welfare.  Has  the  mother  less  concern  than  the  father 
in  the  laws  that  regulate  the  great  social  temptations 
which  everywhere  yawn  for  their  children,  or  in  the 
general  policy  of  the  government  which  they  are  sum¬ 
moned  to  support?  Is  she  less  entitled  to  the  fruits 
of  her  industry  than  he,  and  if  it  be  best  that  some  ar¬ 
rangement  be  made  by  law  for  the  common  support  of 
the  family,  is  there  any  just  reason  why  she  should  not 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


231 


be  consulted  in  making  the  law  as  well  as  he  ?  The 
woman  earns  property  and  owns  it.  Society  taxes  her, 
and  tries  her,  and  sends  her  to  the  jail  or  to  the  gallows. 
Can  it  be  improper  that  she  be  tried  by  her  peers,  or  in¬ 
expedient  that  she  have  a  voice  in  making  the  law  that 
taxes  her? 

It  is  said  that  she  influences  the  man  now.  Very 
well ;  do  you  object  to  that  ?  And  if  not,  is  there  any 
reason  why  she  should  not  do  directly  what  she  does 
indirectly?  If  it  is  proper  that  her  opinion  should  in¬ 
fluence  a  man’s  vote,  is  there  any  good  reason  why  it 
should  not  be  independently  expressed?  Or  is  it  said 
that  she  is  represented  by  men  ?  Excuse  me  ;  I  belong 
to  a  country  which  said  with  James  Otis  in  the  forum 
and  with  George  Washington  in  the  field  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  virtual  representation.  The  guarantee 
of  equal  opportunity  in  modern  society  is  the  ballot. 
It  may  be  a  clumsy  contrivance,  but  it  is  the  best  we 
have  yet  found.  In  our  system  a  man  without  a  vote 
is  but  half  a  man.  When  we  gave  the  freedmen  their 
civil  rights,  we  gave  them  a  gun ;  when  we  added  po¬ 
litical  equality,  we  loaded  it  and  made  it  effective.  So 
long  as  women  are  forbidden  political  equality  the  laws 
and  feelings  of  society  will  be  unjust  to  them. 

The  other  day  a  young  man  and  his  sister  graduated 
at  Oberlin  with  exactly  equal  rank  and  ability.  They 
became  teachers  of  the  same  grade,  in  the  same  town — 
perhaps  in  the  same  school.  He  was  paid  three  or  four 
times  as  much  as  she ;  and  when  she  asked  that  her 
salary  might  be  raised,  she  was  replaced  by  a  young 
man — her  pupil — and  he  was  paid  a  third  more  than 


232 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


she  had  been.  If  women  had  a  vote,  I  think  that 
school-committee  elected  by  the  people  would  have  a 
miraculous  gift  of  sight,  and  suddenly  see  that  exactly 
equal  labor  and  ability  are  worth  exactly  equal  wages. 
Or  look  into  the  statutes  of  Massachusetts.  There  is 
one  which  provides  that  no  married  woman  can  be 
guardian,  even  of  her  own  children  by  a  former  mar¬ 
riage,  until  her  husband  files  in  the  Probate  Court  his 
written  consent  to  her  assuming  the  office.  Such  a 
law  is  the  consequence  of  making  laws  by  men  only ;  if 
women  voted,  it  would  follow  the  fugitive-slave  act  into 
obloquy  and  oblivion. 

I  have  no  more  superstition  about  the  ballot  than 
about  any  other  method  of  social  improvement  and 
progress.  But  all  experience  shows  that  my  neighbor’s 
ballot  is  no  protection  for  me.  We  see  that  voters  may 
be  bribed,  dazzled,  coerced ;  and  where  there  is  prac¬ 
tically  universal  suffrage  among  men  we  often  see,  in¬ 
deed,  corruption,  waste,  and  bad  laws.  But  we  nowhere 
see  that  those  who  once  have  the  ballot  are  willing 
to  relinquish  it,  and  many  of  those  who  most  warmly 
oppose  the  voting  of  women,  also  most  earnestly  ad¬ 
vocate  the  unconditional  restoration  of  political  rights 
to  the  guiltiest  of  the  late  rebel  leaders,  because  they 
know  that  to  deprive  them  of  the  ballot  places  them 
at  a  terrible  disadvantage.  If,  then,  it  is  what  I  may 
call  an  American  political  instinct  that  any  class  of 
men  which  monopolizes  the  political  power  will  be  un¬ 
just  to  other  classes  of  men,  how  much  truer  is  it  that 
one  sex  as  a  class  will  be  unjust  to  the  other.  And  if 
the  usurping  sex,  as  Gibbon  calls  it,  is  physically  the 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


233 


stronger,  then,  just  in  the  degree  that  it  becomes  honor¬ 
able,  enlightened,  civilized,  will  it  see  that  no  class  can 
safely  monopolize  political  power,  and  will  gladly  wel¬ 
come  every  restraint  upon  its  own  tendency  to  abuse  it. 

Yes,  I  am  told,  but  practical  politics  is  a  system  of 
expediency.  If  the  suffrage  is  to  be  enlarged,  it  ought 
to  be  shown  that  the  enlargement  will  promote  the  gen¬ 
eral  welfare.  There  are  as  many  ignorant  women  as 
there  are  intelligent,  and  the  change,  therefore,  will 
merely  increase,  without  improving,  the  number  of 
voters.  Ignorance  may  be  a  proper  disqualification  for 
a  vote,  but  ignorance  is  not  confined  to  sex.  If  we  say 
that  ignorant  persons  shall  not  vote,  very  well.  That 
is  one  thing.  But  it  is  quite  another  to  say  that,  men 
and  women  having  an  equal  interest  in  good  govern¬ 
ment,  ignorant  men  may  vote  and  intelligent  women 
shall  not. 

Besides,  if  we  speak  of  the  public  welfare,  surely  we 
ought  to  have  learned  by  heart  the  great  lesson  which 
has  been  written  in  blood  in  this  country,  that  nothing 
is  so  demoralizing  to  a  people  as  persistence  in  obvious 
and  proved  injustice — a  public  policy  inconsistent  with 
our  fundamental  principles.  I  know,  as  every  man 
knows,  many  a  woman  of  the  noblest  character,  of  the 
highest  intelligence,  of  the  purest  purpose,  the  owner  of 
property,  the  mother  of  children,  devoted  to  her  family 
and  to  all  her  duties,  and  for  that  reason  profoundly  in¬ 
terested  in  public  affairs.  And  when  this  woman  says 
to  me :  “You  are  one  of  the  governing  class,  your  gov¬ 
ernment  is  founded  upon  the  principle  of  expressed 
consent  of  all  as  the  best  security  of  all.  I  have  as 


234 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


much  stake  in  it  as  you,  perhaps  more  than  you,  be¬ 
cause  I  am  a  parent,  and  wish  more  than  many  of  my 
neighbors  to  express  my  opinion  and  assert  my  influ¬ 
ence  by  a  ballot.  I  am  a  better  judge  than  you  or  any 
man  can  be  of  my  own  responsibilities  and  powers. 
I  am  willing  to  bear  my  equal  share  of  every  burden  of 
the  government  in  such  manner  as  we  shall  all  equally 
decide  to  be  best.  By  what  right,  then,  except  that 
of  mere  force,  do  you  deny  me  a  voice  in  the  laws 
which  I  am  forced  to  obey  ?”  What  shall  I  say  ?  What 
can  I  say?  Shall  I  tell  her  that  she  is  “owned”  by 
some  living  man,  or  is  some  dead  man’s  “  relict,”  as 
the  old  phrase  was  ?  Shall  I  tell  her  that  she  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  herself  for  wishing  to  be  unsexed ;  that 
God  has  given  her  the  nursery,  the  ball-room,  the  opera, 
and  that  if  these  fail,  he  has  graciously  provided  the 
kitchen,  the  wash-tub,  and  the  needle  ?  Or  shall  I  tell 
her  that  she  is  a  lute,  a  moonbeam,  a  rosebud?  and 
touch  my  guitar  and  weave  flowers  in  her  hair  and  sing, 

“  Gay  without  toil  and  lovely  without  art. 

They  spring  to  cheer  the  sense  and  glad  the  heart. 

Nor  blush,  my  fair,  to  own  you  copy  these. 

Your  best,  your  sweetest  empire  is  to  please”? 

No,  no.  At  least,  I  will  not  insult  her.  I  can  say 
nothing.  I  hang  my  head  before  that  woman  as 
when  in  foreign  lands  I  was  asked,  “You  are  an 
American.  What  is  the  nation  that  forever  boasts 
of  the  equal  liberty  of  all  its  citizens,  and  is  the 
only  great  nation  in  the  world  that  traffics  in  human 
flesh  ?” 

Or  is  it  said  that  women  do  not  wish  to  vote ;  that 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


235 


it  depends  wholly  upon  themselves,  and  that  whenever 
a  majority  of  them  demand  political  equality  it  will 
be  granted?  But  this  is  a  total  surrender  of  the  ob¬ 
jection.  The  argument  hitherto  has  been  that  it  is  un¬ 
womanly  to  ask  for  a  share  in  political  power ;  and  if 
that  be  so,  then  the  louder  the  demand  becomes  the 
more  pressing  is  the  necessity  of  building  the  barriers 
higher  and  higher.  If  it  be  unwomanly  to  wish  to  vote, 
a  general  demand  upon  the  part  of  women  would  be 
merely  an  insurrection  of  women  against  womanliness, 
to  be  put  down  at  all  hazards  by  men,  who  assume  to 
know  what  this  womanliness  is,  if  women  themselves 
do  not.  Instead  of  yielding  to  a  majority,  there  should 
be  more  formidable  preparations  to  resist  them.  Be¬ 
sides,  if  it  be  unwomanly  and  destructive  of  the  natural 
and  proper  sphere  of  sex  for  women  to  vote,  when  the 
demand  becomes  imposing  from  numbers,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  ascertain  what  has  fostered  the  demand. 
Then  we  shall  find  that  it  is  the  constantly  growing 
respect  for  women,  their  admission  to  certain  civil 
rights  and  to  larger  education,  which  has  logically  led 
them  to  demand  political  rights,  and  there  will  be  no 
remedy  but  in  turning  civilization  backward  and  re¬ 
storing  them  to  their  condition  under  the  old  civili¬ 
zation,  which  treated  them  as  things  and  not  as  per¬ 
sons. 

The  very  moment  women  passed  out  of  the  degrada¬ 
tion  of  the  Greek  household  and  the  contempt  of  the 
Roman  law,  they  began  their  long  and  slow  ascent, 
through  prejudice,  sophistry,  and  passion,  to  their  per¬ 
fect  equality  of  choice  and  opportunity  as  human 


236 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


beings ;  and  the  assertion  that  when  a  majority  of 
women  ask  for  equal  political  rights  they  will  be  grant¬ 
ed,  is  a  confession  that  there  is  no  conclusive  reason 
against  their  sharing  them.  And  if  that  be  so,  how 
can  their  admission  rightfully  depend  upon  the  major¬ 
ity?  Why  should  the  woman  who  does  not  care  to 
vote  prevent  the  voting  of  her  neighbor  who  does? 
Why  should  a  hundred  girls  who  are  content  to  be 
dolls  and  do  what  Mrs.  Grundy  expects  prejudice  the 
choice  of  a  single  one  who  wishes  to  be  a  woman  and 
do  what  her  conscience  requires?  You  tell  me  that 
the  great  mass  of  women  are  uninterested,  indifferent, 
and,  upon  the  whole,  hostile  to  the  movement.  You 
say  what  of  course  you  cannot  know,  but  even  if  it 
were  so,  what  then  ?  There  are  some  of  the  noblest 
and  best  of  women  both  in  this  country  and  in  Eng¬ 
land  who  are  not  indifferent.  They  are  the  women 
who  have  thought  for  themselves  upon  the  subject. 
The  others,  the  great  multitude,  are  mainly  those  who 
have  not  thought  at  all,  who  have  acquiesced  in  the  old 
order,  and  who  have  accepted  the  prejudices  of  men. 
Shall  their  unthinking  acquiescence  or  the  intelligent 
wish  of  their  thoughtful  sisters  decide  the  question? 

And  if  women  do  not  care  about  the  question,  it  is 
high  time  that  they  did,  both  for  themselves  and  for 
men.  The  spirit  of  society  cannot  be  just,  nor  the  laws 
equitable,  so  long  as  half  of  the  population  are  politi¬ 
cally  paralyzed.  And  this  movement,  so  well  begun 
twenty-two  years  ago  by  women  whose  names  will  be 
honored  in  its  history  for  their  undismayed  fidelity  to 
the  welfare  of  their  sex — this  movement  is  now  fully 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


23  7 


organized  for  the  very  purpose  of  interesting  men  and 
women  in  the  question.  It  is  a  pacific  agitation,  but  its 
issues  are  immeasurable.  You  cannot  deride  it  so  con¬ 
temptuously  as  the  last  great  agitation  in  this  country 
was  derided,  nor  so  bitterly  as  the  corn-law  reform  in 
England.  Even  Mr.  Webster,  whose  business  was  to 
know  the  people  and  understand  politics ;  who  had  him¬ 
self,  on  Plymouth  Rock,  declared  the  cause  of  liberty  to 
be  that  of  America,  and  at  Niblo’s  Garden  had  asserted 
the  omnipotence  of  conscience  in  politics — even  Mr. 
Webster  derided  the  antislavery  movement  as  a  rub-a- 
dub  agitation. 

But  it  was  a  drum-beat  that  echoed  over  every  moun¬ 
tain,  and  penetrated  every  valley,  and  roused  the  heart 
of  the  land  to  throb  in  unison.  To  that  rub-a-dub  a 
million  men  appeared  at  Lincoln’s  call,  and  millions  of 
women  supported  them.  To  that  rub-a-dub  the  brave 
and  beautiful  and  beloved  went  smiling  to  their  graves. 
To  that  rub-a-dub  Grant  forced  his  fiery  way  through 
the  Wilderness ;  following  its  roll  Sherman  marched  to 
the  sea,  and  Sheridan  scoured  the  Shenandoah.  The 
rattling  shots  of  the  Kearsarge  sinking  the  Alabama 
were  only  the  far-off  echoes  of  that  terrible  drum¬ 
beat.  To  that  rub-a-dub  Jefferson  Davis  fled  from  Rich¬ 
mond,  and  the  walls  of  the  rebellion  and  of  slavery 
crumbled  at  last  and  forever,  as  the  walls  of  Jericho 
before  the  horns  of  Israel.  That  tremendous  rub-a- 
dub,  played  by  the  hearts  and  hands  of  a  great  people, 
fills  the  land  to-day  with  the  celestial  music  of  liberty, 
and  to  that  people,  still  thrilling  with  that  music,  we 
appeal ! 


238 


FAIR  PLAY  FOR  WOMEN 


We  can  be  patient.  Our  fathers  won  their  indepen¬ 
dence  of  England  by  the  logic  of  English  ideas.  We 
will  persuade  America  by  the  eloquence  of  American 
principles.  In  one  of  the  fierce  Western  battles  among 
the  mountains,  General  Thomas — whom  we  freshly  de¬ 
plore —  was  watching  a  body  of  his  troops  painfully 
pushing  their  way  up  a  steep  hill  against  a  withering 
fire.  Victory  seemed  impossible,  and  the  general  — 
even  he,  a  rock  of  valor  and  of  patriotism — exclaimed, 
“  They  can’t  do  it !  They’ll  never  reach  the  top !” 
His  chief  of  staff,  watching  the  struggle  with  equal 
earnestness,  placed  his  hand  on  his  commander’s  arm 
and  said  softly,  “  Time,  time,  General ;  give  them 
time”;  and  presently  the  moist  eyes  of  the  brave  leader 
saw  his  soldiers  victorious  upon  the  summit.  They 
were  American  soldiers — so  are  we.  They  were  fight¬ 
ing  an  American  battle — so  are  we.  They  were  climb¬ 
ing  a  height — so  are  we.  Their  general  gave  them  time 
and  they  conquered.  Give  us  time,  and  we,  too,  shall 
triumph. 


THE  PURITAN 


A  SPEECH  MADE  AT 
SOCIETY  OF  THE 


IX 

PRINCIPLE:  LIBERTY  UNDER 
THE  LAW 

THE  DINNER  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND 
CITY  OF  NEW  YORK,  DEC.  22,  1 876 


The  following  account,  by  the  Rev.  Edward  Everett  Hale,  of 
the  circumstances  attending  the  delivery  of  this  speech,  and  of 
the  effect  produced  by  it,  appeared  in  the  Boston  Commonwealth , 
Sept,  io,  1892  : 

“  I  have  said  a  hundred  times,  and  am  glad  here  to  put  on 
record  my  opinion,  that  at  a  great  moment  in  our  history  George 
William  Curtis  spoke  the  word  which  was  most  needed  to  save 
the  nation  from  terrible  calamity.  It  was  at  the  annual  dinner 
of  the  Forefathers’  Society  of  the  city  of  New  York,  at  Delmon- 
ico’s  Hotel,  in  1876.  That  society  embodies  some  of  the  very 
best  of  the  leaders  of  business  and  of  social  life  in  New  York, 
and  it  is  the  pride  of  its  managers  to  assemble  on  Forefathers’ 
Day  the  very  best  of  the  leaders,  who  are  not  of  New  England 
blood,  who  represent  the  highest  and  most  important  interests 
in  that  city.  On  the  anniversary  of  1876  I  had  the  honor  and 
pleasure  of  representing  at  their  dinner-party  Boston  and  the 
New-Englanders  who  had  n-ot  emigrated.  It  was  at  the  moment 
when  the  Hayes-Tilden  difficulty  was  at  its  very  worst.  Intelli¬ 
gent  men  and  even  decent  newspapers  spoke  freely  of  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  civil  war.  The  dead-lock  seemed  absolute,  and  even 
men  perfectly  loyal  to  the  principles  of  American  government 
turned  pale  as  they  looked  forward  to  the  issue.  In  the  distin¬ 
guished  company  of  perhaps  three  hundred  representative  men, 
at  Delmonico’s,  about  half  believed  to  the  bottom  of  their  hearts 
that  Mr.  Tilden  was  chosen  President.  The  other  half  believed 
with  equal  certainty  that  Mr.  Hayes  was  chosen.  I  myself  had 
no  more  doubt  then  than  I  have  now  that  Mr.  Hayes  was  fairly 
chosen.  I  sat  by  a  mayor  of  New  York,  a  man  of  high  charac¬ 
ter  and  level  head,  who  told  me  that  he  had  postponed  his  jour¬ 
ney  to  Cuba  that  he  might  be  present  at  Mr.  Tilden’s  inaugura¬ 
tion.  He  was  as  sure  of  that  inauguration  as  he  was  that  he 
lived. 

“  Before  such  an  audience  Mr.  Curtis  rose  to  speak.  Instantly 


— as  always — he  held  them  in  rapt  attention.  It  would  have 
been  perfectly  easy  for  a  timid  man,  or  even  h  person  of  historic 
taste,  to  avoid  the  great  subject  of  the  hour.  Mr.  Curtis  might 
have  talked  well  about  Brewster  and  Carver,  Lryden  and  Delft- 
haven,  and  have  left  Washington  and  the  White  House  alone. 
But  he  was  not  a  timid  man.  He  was  much  mot;:  than  a  man 
of  delicate  taste,  well  trained  and  elegant.  And  therefore  he 
plunged  right  into  the  terrible  subject.  Terribl^,  is  the  only 
word.  He  passed  from  point  to  point  of  its  intricacies,  of  which 
he  did  not  underrate  the  difficulty.  He  then  u(sed  the  privi¬ 
lege  of  the  occasion,  citing  the  common-sense  of  the  conscien¬ 
tious  statesmen  of  our  race  and  he  came  out  with  his  expression 
of  his  certain  confidence  that  the  good  sense  of  the  sons  of  such 
an  ancestry  would  devise  a  tribunal  impartial  enough  and  august 
enough  to  determine  the  question  to  the  unanimous  assent  of 
the  nation. 

“  He  said  this  so  clearly  and  certainly  that  he  carried  with  him 
every  man  in  the  assembly.  Almost  on  the  moment  every  man 
was  on  his  feet,  cheering  the  sentiment.  I  know  that  the  Mayor 
of  New  York  and  I,  who  had  but  just  before  been  absolutely  at 
cross-purposes  in  our  talk,  were  standing  side  by  side,  each  with 
one  foot  in  his  chair  and  the  other  foot  on  the  table,  cheering 
and  waving  our  handkerchiefs.  So  was  every  other  man  of  the 
twenty  guests  at  the  table. 

“  Those  three  hundred  men  of  mark  in  New  York  went  home 
that  night,  and  went  to  their  business  the  next  day,  to  say  that  a 
court  of  arbitration  must  be  established  to  settle  that  contro¬ 
versy.  In  that  moment  of  Mr.  Curtis’s  triumph,  as  I  believe,  it 
was  settled.  This  is  certain  :  that  from  that  moment,  as  every 
careful  reader  may  find  to-day,  the  whole  tone  of  the  press  of  all 
parties  in  the  city  of  New  York  expressed  the  belief  which  he  ex¬ 
pressed  then,  and  which  that  assembly  of  leaders  approved  by 
cheers.  And  from  that  moment  to  this  moment  there  has 
jnore  talk  of  civil  war. 

I  remember  Mr.  Curtis  in  a  scene  like  this,  where 
^rurag  e  of  his  convictions,  I  am  a  little  sensitive 
Hoeak  of  his  ‘  elegance  ’  and  'eloquence,’  and 
of  the  orators,’  as  if  he  were  only  or  chiefly 
lued  especially  the  arts  of  expression.  Un- 


doubtedly  he  did  Rralue  them,  for  he  was  not  a  fool.  But  he 
valued  them  for  the  use  which  he  could  make  of  them  for  the 
welfare  of  the  St  i^e,  not  for  themselves  or  for  his  own  immediate 
reputation.” 

The  speech  ii  reprinted  from  the  pamphlet  report  of  the  occa¬ 
sion  issued  by  the  Society.  The  indications  of  applause  have 
been  allowed  to  stand,  as  showing  the  spirit  and  impression  of 
the  moment.  • 


THE  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE :  LIBERTY  UNDER 

THE  LAW 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  New 
England  Society  : — It  was  Izaak  Walton,  in  his  “An¬ 
gler,”  who  said  that  Dr.  Botelier  was  accustomed  to  re¬ 
mark  “  that  doubtless  God  might  have  made  a  better 
berry  than  the  strawberry,  but  doubtless  he  never  did.” 
And  I  suppose  I  speak  the  secret  feeling  of  this  festive 
company  when  I  say  that  doubtless  there  might  have 
been  a  better  place  to  be  born  in  than  New  England, 
but  doubtless  no  such  place  exists.  \_Applause  and 
laughter .]  And  if  any  sceptic  should  reply  that  our 
very  presence  here  would  seem  to  indicate  that  doubt¬ 
less,  also,  New  England  is  as  good  a  place  to  leave  as 
to  stay  in  \laughter\  I  should  reply  to  him  that,  on  the 
contrary,  our  presence  is  but  an  added  glory  of  our 
mother.  It  is  an  illustration  of  the  devout  mission¬ 
ary  spirit,  of  the  willingness  in  which  she  has  trained 
us  to  share  with  others  the  blessings  that  we  have  re¬ 
ceived,  and  to  circle  the  continent,  to  girdle  the  globe, 
with  the  strength  of  New  England  character  and  the 
purity  of  New  England  principles.  [ Applausel\  Even 
the  Knickerbockers,  Mr.  President  —  in  whose  stately 


244  THE  puritan  principle  :  liberty  under  the  law 

and  splendid  city  we  are  at  this  moment  assembled, 
and  assembled  of  right  because  it  is  our  home — even 
they  would  doubtless  concede  that  much  of  the  state 
and  splendor  of  this  city  is  due  to  the  enterprise,  the 
industry,  and  the  genius  of  those  whom  their  first  his¬ 
torian  describes  as  “  losel  Yankees/’  [. Laughter .]  Sir, 
they  grace  our  feast  with  their  presence ;  they  will  en¬ 
liven  it,  I  am  sure,  with  their  eloquence  and  wit.  Our 
tables  are  rich  with  the  flowers  grown  in  their  soil;  but 
there  is  one  flower  that  we  do  not  see,  one  flower  whose 
perfume  fills  a  continent,  which  has  blossomed  for  more 
than  two  centuries  and  a  half  with  ever-increasing  and 
deepening  beauty — a  flower  which  blooms  at  this  mo¬ 
ment,  on  this  wintry  night,  in  never-fading  freshness  in 
a  million  of  true  hearts,  from  the  snow-clad  Katahdin  to 
the  warm  Golden  Gate  of  the  South  Sea,  and  over  its 
waters  to  the  isles  of  the  East  and  the  land  of  Prester 
John — the  flower  of  flowers,  the  Pilgrim’s  Mayflower. 
[. A pplause^\ 

Well,  sir,  holding  that  flower  in  my  hand  at  this  mo¬ 
ment,  I  say  that  the  day  we  celebrate  commemorates 
the  introduction  upon  this  continent  of  the  master  prin¬ 
ciple  of  its  civilization.  I  do  not  forget  that  we  are  a 
nation  of  many  nationalities.  I  do  not  forget  that  there 
are  gentlemen  at  this  board  who  wear  the  flower  of 
other  nations  close  upon  their  hearts.  I  remember  the 
forget-me-nots  of  Germany,  and  I  know  that  the  race 
which  keeps  “watch  upon  the  Rhine ’’keeps  watch  also 
upon  the  Mississippi  and  the  Lakes.  I  recall — how  could 
I  forget  ? — the  delicate  shamrock  ;  for 

“There  came  to  this  beach  a  poor  exile  of  Erin," 
and  on  this  beach,  with  his  native  modesty, 


V 


_ _ ^principle:  liberty  under  the  law  245 

“  He  still  sings  his  bold  anthem  of  Erin-go-Bragh.” 

[ Applause.]  I  remember  surely,  sir,  the  lily — too  often 
the  tiger-lily — of  France  [laughter  and  applause]  and 
the  thistle  of  Scotland ;  I  recall  the  daisy  and  the  rose 
of  England ;  and,  sir,  in  Switzerland,  high  upon  the 
Alps,  on  the  very  edge  of  the  glacier,  the  highest  flower 
that  grows  in  Europe,  is  the  rare  edelweiss.  It  is  in 
Europe  ;  we  are  in  America.  And  here  in  America, 
higher  than  shamrock  or  thistle,  higher  than  rose,  lily, 
or  daisy,  higher  than  the  highest,  blooms  the  perennial 
Mayflower.  [Applause.]  For,  sir  and  gentlemen,  it  is 
the  English-speaking  race  that  has  moulded  the  des¬ 
tiny  of  this  continent ;  and  the  Puritan  influence  is 
the  strongest  influence  that  has  acted  upon  it.  [Ap¬ 
plause.] 

I  am  surely  not  here  to  assert  that  the  men  who  have 
represented  that  influence  have  always  been  men  whose 
spirit  was  blended  of  sweetness  and  light.  I  confess 
truly  their  hardness,  their  prejudice,  their  narrowness. 
All  this  I  know :  Charles  Stuart  could  bow  more  bland¬ 
ly,  could  dance  more  gracefully  than  John  Milton;  and 
the  Cavalier  king  looks  out  from  the  canvas  of  Vandyck 
with  a  more  romantic  beauty  of  flowing  love-locks  than 
hung  upon  the  brows  of  Edward  Winslow,  the  only 
Pilgrim  father  whose  portrait  comes  down  to  us.  [Ap¬ 
plause.]  But,  sir,  we  estimate  the  cause  beyond  the 
man.  Not  even  is  the  gracious  spirit  of  Christianity 
itself  measured  by  its  confessors.  If  we  could  see  the 
actual  force,  the  creative  power  of  the  Pilgrim  principle, 
we  are  not  to  look  at  the  company  who  came  over  in 
the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower ;  we  are  to  look  upon  the 


246  THE  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  :  LIBERTY 

forty  millions  who  fill  this  continent  from  sea  to  se® 
{Applause  l\  The  Mayflower ,  sir,  brought  seed  and  no> 
a  harvest.  In  a  century  and  a  half  the  religious  restric¬ 
tions  of  the  Puritans  had  grown  into  absolute  religious 
liberty,  and  in  two  centuries  it  had  burst  beyond  the 
limits  of  New  England,  and  John  Carver  of  the  May¬ 
flower  had  ripened  into  Abraham  Lincoln  of  the  Illi¬ 
nois  prairie.  [ Great  and  prolonged  applause .]  Why, 
gentlemen,  if  you  would  see  the  most  conclusive  proof 
of  the  power  of  this  principle,  you  have  but  to  observe 
that  the  local  distinctive  title  of  New-Englanders  has 
now  become  that  of  every  man  in  the  country.  Every 
man  who  hears  me,  from  whatever  State  in  the  Union, 
is,  to  Europe,  a  Yankee,  and  to-day  the  United  States 
are  but  the  “  universal  Yankee  nation.”  [. Applause.] 

Do  you  ask  me,  then,  what  is  this  Puritan  principle? 
Do  you  ask  me  whether  it  is  as  good  for  to-day  as  for 
yesterday ;  whether  it  is  good  for  every  national  emer¬ 
gency  ;  whether  it  is  good  for  the  situation  of  this  hour? 
I  think  we  need  neither  doubt  nor  fear.  The  Puritan 
principle  in  its  essence  is  simply  individual  freedom. 
From  that  spring  religious  liberty  and  political  equal¬ 
ity.  The  free  State,  the  free  Church,  the  free  School 
— these  are  the  triple  armor  of  American  nationality, 
of  American  security.  {Applause .]  But  the  Pilgrims, 
while  they  have  stood  above  all  men  for  their  idea  of 
liberty,  have  always  asserted  liberty  under  law  and 
never  separated  it  from  law.  John  Robinson,  in  the 
letter  that  he  wrote  the  Pilgrims  when  they  sailed,  said 
these  words,  that  well,  sir,  might  be  written  in  gold 
around  the  cornice  of  that  future  banqueting-hall  to 


THE  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  :  LIBERTY  UNDER  THE  LAW  247 

which  you  have  alluded,  “You  know  that  the  image 
of  the  Lord’s  dignity  and  authority  which  the  magistry 
beareth  is  honorable  in  how  mean  person  soever.”  [ Ap¬ 
plause ’.]  This  is  the  Puritan  principle.  Those  men 
stood  for  liberty  under  the  law .  They  had  tossed  long 
upon  a  wintry  sea ;  their  minds  were  full  of  images  de¬ 
rived  from  their  voyage ;  they  knew  that  the  will  of 
the  people  alone  is  but  a  gale  smiting  a  rudderless  and 
sailless  ship,  and  hurling  it,  a  mass  of  wreck,  upon  the 
rocks.  But  the  will  of  the  people,  subject  to  law,  is  the 
same  gale  filling  the  trim  canvas  of  a  ship  that  minds 
the  helm,  bearing  it  over  yawning  and  awful  abysses  of 
ocean  safely  to  port.  [ Loud  applausel] 

Now,  gentlemen,  in  this  country  the  Puritan  principle 
in  its  development  has  advanced  to  this  point,  that  it  pro- 
vides  us  a  lawful  remedy  for  every  emergency  that  may 
arise.  \Cheersl\  I  stand  here  as  a  son  of  New  England. 
Irfevery  fibre  of  my  being  am  I  a  child  of  the  Pilgrims. 
[ Applause .]  The  most  knightly  of  all  the  gentlemen 
at  Elizabeth’s  court  said  to  the  young  poet,  when  he 
would  write  an  immortal  song,  “  Look  into  thy  heart 
and  write.”  And  I,  sir  and  brothers,  if,  looking  into 
my  own  heart  at  this  moment,  I  might  dare  to  think 
that  what  I  find  written  there  is  written  also  upon  the 
heart  of  my  mother,  clad  in  her  snows  at  home,  her 
voice  in  this  hour  would  be  a  message  spoken  from  the 
land  of  the  Pilgrims  to  the  capital  of  this  nation — a 
message  like  that  which  Patrick  Henry  sent  from  Vir¬ 
ginia  to  Massachusetts  when  he  heard  of  Concord  and 
Lexington :  “  I  am  not  a  Virginian,  I  am  an  Arne 
can.”  [ Great  applausel\  And  so,  gentlemen,  at  this 


248  THE  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE:  LIBERTY  UNDER  THE  LAW 


hour,  we  are  not  Republicans,  we  are  not  Democrats, 
we  are  Americans.  [  Tremendous  applause .] 

The  voice  of  New  England,  I  believe,  going  to  the 

7 

capital,  would  be  this,  that  neither  is  the  Republican 
Senate  to  insist  upon  its  exclusive  partisan  way,  nor 
is  the  Democratic  House  to  insist  upon  its  exclusive 
partisan  way,  but  Senate  and  House,  representing  the 
American  people  and  the  American  people  only,  in  the 
light  of  the  Constitution  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
law,  are  to  provide  a  way  over  which  a  President,  be  he 
Republican  or  be  he  Democrat,  shall  pass  unchallenged 
to  his  chair.  [ Vociferous  applause ,  the  compa?iy  rising 
~7o  their  feetl\  Ah,  gentlemen  [ renewed  applause ] — 
think  not,  Mr.  President,  that  I  am  forgetting  the  oc¬ 
casion  or  its  amenities.  [Cries  of  “  No,  no,”  and  “  Go 
on.”]  I  am  remembering  the  Puritans ;  I  am  remem¬ 
bering  Plymouth  Rock,  and  the  virtues  that  made  it 
illustrious.  [A  voice — “Justice.”]  But  we,  gentlemen, 
are  to  imitate  those  virtues,  as  our  toast  says,  only  by 
being  greater  than  the  men  who  stood  upon  that  rocktF* 
[Applause. \  As  this  gay  and  luxurious  banquet  to 
their  scant  and  severe  fare,  so  must  our  virtues,  to  be 
worthy  of  them,  be  greater  and  richer  than  theirs.  And 
as  we  are  three  centuries  older,  so  should  we  be  three 
centuries  wiser  than  they.  [Applause.']  Sons  of  the 
Pilgrims,  you  are  not  to  level  forests,  you  are  not  to 
war  with  savage  men  and  savage  beasts,  you  are  not 
to  tame  a  continent  nor  even  found  a  State.  Our  task 
is  nobler,  is  diviner.  Our  task,  sir,  is  to  reconcile  a  na- 
n.  It  is  to  curb  the  fury  of  party  spirit.  It  is  to 
introduce  a  loftier  and  manlier  tone  everywhere  into 


THE  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  :  LIBERTY  UNDER  THE  LAW  249 

our  political  life.  It  is  to  educate  every  boy  and  every 
girl,  and  then  leave  them  perfectly  free  to  go  from  any 
school-house  to  any  church.  [Cries  of  “  Goodf  and 
cheers.']  Above  all,  sir,  it  is  to  protect  absolutely  the 
equal  rights  of  the  poorest  and  the  richest,  of  the  most 
ignorant  and  the  most  intelligent  citizen,  and  it  is  to 
stand  forth,  brethren,  as  a  triple  wall  of  brass  around 
our  native  land,  against  the  mad  blows  of  violence  or 
the  fatal  dry-rot  of  fraud.  [Loud  applause .]  And  at 
this  moment,  sir,  the  grave  and  august  shades  of  the 
forefathers  whom  we  invoke  bend  over  us  in  benedic¬ 
tion  as  they  call  us  to  this  sublime  task.  This,  broth¬ 
ers  and  friends,  this  is  to  imitate  the  virtues  of  our 
forefathers  ;  this  is  to  make  our  day  as  glorious  as  theirs. 
[ Great  applause ,  followed  by  three  cheers  for  the  distin¬ 
guished  speaker .] 


X 

PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK 

A  SPEECH  MADE  AT  THE  DINNER  OF  THE  NEW  ENGLAND 
SOCIETY  OF  THE  CITY  OF  NEW  YORK,  DEC.  22,  1883, 

IN  ANSWER  TO  THE  TOAST  OF  “PURITAN 


PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK 


PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK 


Puritan  principle  and  Puritan  pluck !  But  how 
shall  we  separate  them?  I  remember  many  years  ago 
when  I  was  one  of  a  group  of  young  writers  upon  the 
Tribune,  and  Mr.  Greeley  was  an  ardent  temperance  re¬ 
former,  that  a  vigorous  article  appeared  one  morning 
urging  young  men  to  avoid  the  tempter  in  whatever 
form  he  might  appear,  whether  as  punch  or  bitters,  as 
sherry  or  Madeira,  as  hock  or  claret,  as  Heidsieck  or 
champagne.  [Laughter. ~\  The  young  writers — who  were 
not  ardent  temperance  reformers — greeted  Mr.  Greeley 
uproariously  when  he  appeared  at  the  office,  and  with  in¬ 
finite  glee  pointed  out  to  him  that  Heidsieck  was  not 
a  different  wine,  but  only  a  particular  brand  of  cham¬ 
pagne.  As  the  laugh  rang  round  the  room,  Mr.  Greeley, 
who,  as  his  opponents  usually  found,  was  quite  able  to 
hold  his  own,  leaned  with  his  shoulder  against  the  wall 
looking  benignly  at  the  laughing  chorus,  and  when  it 
became  quiet  he  said,  “  Wal,  boys,  I  guess  I’m  the  only 
man  in  this  office  that  could  have  made  that  mistake,” 
and  then  added,  “  It  don’t  matter  what  you  call  him, 
champagne  or  Heidsieck  or  absinthe,  he’s  the  same  old 
devil.”  [Much  laughter .]  It  was  what  the  English 


254  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK 

Royalists  and  Archbishop  Laud  said  in  England,  and 
what  old  Peter  Stuyvesant  and  the  Dutchmen  said  in 
New  York,  of  a  very  different  force.  It  does  not  matter 
what  you  call  it,  Puritan  principle  or  Puritan  pluck,  it  is 
the  same  old  devil. 

The  other  evening  our  amiable  fellow- citizens  the 
Knickerbockers  held  their  annual  feast,  and  our  friend 
General  Sharpe  ruefully  declared  that  he  didn’t  see 
what  good  Evacuation  Day  had  done  the  children  of 
St.  Nicholas,  for  scarcely  was  the  late  Centennial  com¬ 
memoration  ended  than  the  Scotchmen  in  New  York 
deliberately  celebrated  their  existence  here,  and  the 
Yankees  were  preparing  to  celebrate  theirs.  “  When  I 
see  these  things,”  said  the  General,  “  I  tremble  for  my 
share  of  the  heritage  of  Anneke  Jans.”  But  he  knows 
the  explanation.  It  is  the  same  old  devil.  When  Old 
England  marched  out  of  New  York,  New  England 
marched  in.  It  has  held  possession  ever  since,  and  the 
General  will  find  that  when  the  Anneke  Jans  estate 
comes  to  be  settled,  Puritan  principle  and  Puritan  pluck 
will  divide  it  between  them.  The  Pilgrim  Fathers  in 
the  city,  who  are  now  engaged  in  proving  that  the  elec¬ 
tric  wires  in  the  streets  are  a  benevolent  system  of 
municipal  life-preservers,  and  that  no  well-regulated 
man  of  business  can  possibly  tell  where  his  account- 
books  are;  [. Applause]  or  who,  seated,  a  group  of  modern 
Mariuses  amid  the  ruins  of  Golgoi,  are  demonstrating 
conclusively  that  the  proper  study  of  mankind  is  the 
Venus  Aphrodite  of  Cyprus  [Laughter] — these  learned 
gentlemen  will  prove  incontestably  that  the  only  legiti¬ 
mate  heirs  of  Anneke  Jans  are  the  descendants  of  the 


PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK  255 

Plymouth  Pilgrims,  and  that  they,  the  learned  gentle¬ 
men  themselves,  are  the  sole  surviving  representatives 
of  those  legitimate  heirs.  [Applause .] 

Puritan  principle  and  Puritan  pluck  !  Why,  Mr.  Presi¬ 
dent,  whether  you  contemplate  the  one  or  the  other,  you 
see  but  different  forms  of  the  same  thing.  In  the  old 
fable,  whether  the  knight  looked  at  the  golden  side  or 
the  silver  side,  it  was  still  the  same  resplendent  shield. 
So,  whether  it  was  John  Pym  moving  the  Grand  Remon¬ 
strance  in  Parliament;  or  John  Milton  touching  the 
loftiest  stop  of  epic  song;  or  Oliver  Cromwell  and  his 
Ironsides  raising  the  mighty  battle-cry  at  Worcester 
and  Dunbar,  “Arise,  O  Lord,  and  scatter  thine  ene¬ 
mies,”  then  putting  spur  and  sweeping  forward  like  a 
whirlwind  to  scatter  them ;  or  that  immortal  company 
of  men  and  women  who,  before  Pym  and  Milton  and 
Cromwell,  bore  their  triumphant  testimony  and  renewed 
upon  the  wild  New  England  shore  the  miracle  of  Moses 
in  the  earlier  wilderness,  making  Plymouth  Rock  like 
the  rock  of  Horeb,  a  fountain  of  refreshment  for  all 
the  people — all  this  long  line  of  light  in  history,  like 
the  Milky-Way  compact  of  stars  across  the  sky,  is  the 
splendid  story  of  Puritan  principle  and  Puritan  pluck. 
[Prolonged  applause 

This  principle,  which  was  unswerving  fidelity  to  the 
individual  conscience,  made  the  pluck ;  and  the  pluck 
established  the  principle.  I  think,  said  the  philoso¬ 
pher,  therefore  I  am.  I  believe,  said  Puritanism,  there¬ 
fore  I  can.  It  was  not,  indeed,  a  generous  and  all- 
embracing  faith.  Puritanism  did  not  profess  to  love  and 
serve  liberty  as  we  understand  it.  Above  all,  it  saw 


256  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK 

only  one  side.  But  that  is  what  makes  aggressive  lead¬ 
ership. 

Among  modern  Englishmen  in  public  life  the  one 
who  most  resembles  the  statesmen  of  the  Puritan  Com¬ 
monwealth  is  John  Bright,  and  Louis  Blanc  said  of  him 
that  his  distinction  was  his  dogged  belief  in  the  right¬ 
eousness  of  his  own  view.  It  was  this  uncompromising 
adherence  to  his  own  opinion,  this  sturdy  conviction 
that  his  opinion  was  the  only  one,  which  during  the 
long  agony  of  our  Civil  War  made  John  Bright  stand  in 
Parliament  as  unshaken  as  John  Pym,  representing  with 
Puritan  principle  and  Puritan  pluck  the  cause  of  Ameri¬ 
can  union  and  American  liberty.  [ Applause .]  Among 
Americans  the  distinctive  Puritan  statesman  of  our 
time,  the  worthy  political  descendant  of  John  Win- 
throp  and  Samuel  Adams,  whose  name  can  never  be 
mentioned  at  this  New  England  table  without  affec¬ 
tion  and  honor,  who  added  to  the  indomitable  con¬ 
viction  of  the  Roundhead  the  cultivated  graces  of  the 
Cavalier,  and  whose  lofty  character  and  unstained  life 
was  a  perpetual  rebuke  of  mercenary  politics  and  mean 
ambitions,  was  Charles  Sumner.  I  was  one  day  talk¬ 
ing  with  him  upon  some  public  question,  and  as  our 
conversation  warmed  I  said  to  him,  “Yes,  but  you  for¬ 
get  the  other  side.”  He  brought  his  clinched  hand 
down  upon  the  table  till  it  rang  again,  and  his  voice 
shook  the  room  as  he  thundered  in  reply,  “  There  is  no 
other  side!”  There  spoke  the  Puritan.  There  flamed 
the  unconquerable  spirit  which  swept  the  Stuarts  out 
of  England,  liberalized  the  British  Constitution,  planted 
the  Republic  in  America,  freed  the  slaves  upon  this  soil, 


PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK 


257 


and  made  the  Union  a  national  bond  of  equal  liberty. 
[Applause.] 

’A1*  L 

Our  good  friends  the  Knickerbockers  are  never  weary 
of  telling  us  that  our  fathers  were  sanctimonious  sniffers, 
who  rolled  up  their  eyes  and  snarled  psalms  through 
their  noses — canting  hypocrites,  who  persecuted  Quakers 
and  hung  forlorn  old  women  for  witches.  Well,  Crom¬ 
well  and  his  men  did  sing  hymns  to  some  purpose,  and 
the  proudest  music  of  the  Scotch  Highlands  was  the 
psalmody  of  the  old  Covenanters,  whose  lingering  echoes 
still  haunt  those  misty  mountains.  Massachusetts  cer¬ 
tainly  persecuted  the  Quakers,  and  so  did  New  York, 
and  the  negro  hangings  in  New  York  a  hundred  and 
forty  years  ago  are  as  atrocious  as  the  witch  hangings 
in  Salem.  In  the  game  of  persecution,  as  between  New 
England  and  New  York,  the  dishonors  are  easy.  But 
when  we  have  called  the  Puritan  a  sour-faced  fanatic, 
have  we  done  with  him  ?  Is  that  all?  Old  John  Adams, 
one  of  the  greatest  names  in  American  history,  was  a 
small,  choleric,  and  dogmatic  man.  But  the  little,  dog¬ 
matic,  and  testy  man  took  the  Continental  Congress, 
took  the  American  colonies  in  his  arms  and  lifted  them 
to  independence.  You  do  not  dispose  of  John  Adams  by 
calling  him  Sir  Anthony  Absolute.  You  do  not  dispose 
of  the  Puritan  by  calling  him  Praise -God  Barebones. 
Was  he  a  sour-faced  fanatic?  But  John  Robinson,  at 
Leyden,  confident  that  there  was  more  truth  to  break 
forth  from  God’s  Word,  is  quite  as  lofty  a  figure  as  Arch¬ 
bishop  Laud  in  London  cropping  and  branding  his  op¬ 
ponents  into  ecclesiastical  conformity ;  and  the  grim  old 
Roundhead,  Governor  John  Endicott,  of  Massachusetts 

I-— 1 7 


2  c8  PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK 

Bay,  cutting  the  cross  out  of  the  colonial  flag,  is  quite 
as  noble  a  ruler  as  the  courtly  King  Charles  Stuart  of 
England,  parting  his  love-locks  and  telling  lies  to  the 
Parliament.  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  The 
Puritan  may  have  fined  a  man  for  kissing  his  wife  on 
Sunday,  but  he  led  the  battle  of  religious  liberty.  He 
may  have  put  a  boy  in  the  stocks  for  insulting  the 
magistrate,  but  he  founded  the  freest  of  free  common¬ 
wealths.  By  their  fruits,  not  by  their  roots,  ye  shall  know 
them.  U nder  the  matted,  damp  leaves  in  the  April  woods 
of  New  England,  straggling  and  burrowing  and  stretch¬ 
ing  far  in  darkness  and  in  cold,  you  shall  find  tough,  hard, 
fibrous  roots.  But  the  flower  they  bear  is  the  loveliest 
and  sweetest  of  all  flowers  in  the  year.  The  root  is  black 
and  rough  and  unsightly.  But  the  flower  is  the  May¬ 
flower.  The  root  of  Puritanism  may  have  been  gloomy 
bigotry,  but  the  flower  was  liberty  and  its  fruit.  Behold 
your  country !  Sons  of  the  Pilgrims,  from  Katahdin  to 
the  Golden  Gate,  si  monumentum  quaeris,  circnmspice  ! 

Well,  brethren  of  the  kindred  tie,  as  Mr.  Webster 
called  our  fathers  at  this  table,  we  are  the  heirs  of  this 
Puritan  principle  and  Puritan  pluck,  and  what  do  we 
propose  to  do  with  our  splendid  heritage  ?  To  be  worthy 
of  it  what  can  we  do  but  apply  it  to  our  circumstances  as 
our  fathers  did  to  theirs?  They  followed  the  apostolic 
injunction  to  do  with  all  their  might  what  their  hands 
found  to  do ;  whether  they  prayed  or  planted  or  fought, 
they  did  it  with  all  their  soul  and  strength.  Cotton 
Mather  tells  an  excellent  story  of  a  Boston  divine,  who 
went  to  preach  to  the  fishermen  of  Marblehead,  and  who 
exhorted  them  earnestly  not  to  forget  religion,  which  was 


PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK  259 

the  main  end  of  the  settlement.  “  Oh,  no,”  said  one  of 
the  fishermen,  “  not  at  all ;  he  thinks  that  he  is  preach¬ 
ing  in  Boston.  Religion  is  all  very  well ;  that  is  the 
main  end  in  Boston.  But  here  at  Marblehead  our  main 
end  is  fishing.”  Marblehead  fished  for  cod  as  diligently 
as  Boston  fished  for  souls.  The  Pilgrim  Fathers  fought 
relentless  winter,  every  kind  of  personal  privation,  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  forest,  and  savage  men.  But  the  frost 
and  bears  and  remorseless  foes  with  which  the  Pilgrim 
children  must  contend  are  of  another  kind.  If  Puritan 
principle  and  pluck  have  largely  cleared  the  continent, 
and  inspiring  other  influences  have  in  concert  with  them 
founded  a  free  Church  and  a  free  State,  and  decreed  the 
equal  rights  of  the  people,  it  is  the  business  of  that  prin¬ 
ciple  and  pluck  now  to  keep  the  Church  and  the  State 
free,  the  government  pure,  politics  honest,  and,  as  our 
principles  defended  the  people  from  ancient  forms  of 
tyranny,  to  protect  them  from  new  forms  of  tyranny  as 
they  may  arise.  If,  for  instance,  any  body  or  any  pow¬ 
er  should  venture  to  lay  hostile  hands  on  the  free,  non¬ 
sectarian  public  schools,  let  Puritan  principle  warn  them 
to  beware,  and  Puritan  pluck  stand  ready  to  enforce  the 
warning.  If  any  man  or  any  body  of  men  in  high  offi¬ 
cial  position,  in  order  to  conciliate  a  political  support 
which  they  despise,  seek  to  prostitute  the  government  to 
direct  or  indirect  countenance  of  crime,  let  Puritan  prin¬ 
ciple  teach  them  that  the  corner-stone  of  English  and 
American  liberty  is  loyalty  to  law,  and  Puritan  pluck 
show  them  that  the  loss  of  public  and  private  respect  is 
the  price  of  pandering  to  ignorance  and  brutal  passion. 
[Applause. ~\  If  any  conspirators  should  seek  to  control 


26o 


PURITAN  PRINCIPLE  AND  PURITAN  PLUCK 


parties  and  politics  for  venal  purposes  and  personal  am¬ 
bition,  let  Puritan  principle  unmask  the  bosses  and  re¬ 
mind  them  that  Puritan  pluck  cut  off  the  head  of  King 
Charles  and  sent  King  James  spinning  out  of  the  three 
kingdoms.  If  under  our  political  forms  unworthy  candi¬ 
dates  are  offered  for  our  votes,  or  worthy  candidates  by 
unworthy  methods,  let  Puritan  principle  bolt  the  nomi¬ 
nation,  and  Puritan  pluck  scratch  the  ticket.  [Applause. ] 
If  in  our  administrative  systems,  national  or  State  or 
municipal,  abuses  of  every  kind  have  accumulated  into 
Augean  heaps  of  fraud  and  corruption,  let  Puritan  prin¬ 
ciple  firmly  hold  the  light  of  investigation  and  exposure 
in  the  darkest  places,  and  Puritan  pluck  with  a  broom  of 
fire  sweep  them  clean.  [Applause.']  Newer  forms  of  the 
old  problems  arising  from  the  difference  of  human  con¬ 
dition —  vast  corporate  capital,  for  instance,  upon  one 
side,  and  individual  poverty  upon  the  other — tax  more 
and  more  the  wisdom  and  humanity  of  a  great  people. 
Let  Puritan  principle  recall  these  last  words  which  our 
Pilgrim  Fathers  heard  from  John  Robinson,  to  which  I 
have  already  alluded,  that  there  is  more  light  to  break 
forth  from  God’s  Word,  and  Puritan  pluck  stand  ready 
to  walk  steadfastly  in  the  way  which  that  light  shall  il¬ 
luminate.  Be  this  spirit,  sons  of  New  England,  from 
year  to  year  the  consecration  of  our  annual  feast,  and 
America  will  indeed  tower  aloft — incarnate  Liberty  en¬ 
lightening  the  world,  Puritan  principle  and  Puritan  pluck 
will  still  go  round  the  globe  conquering  and  to  conquer, 
and  Carver  and  Bradford  and  Winslow,  Winthrop  and 
Davenport  and  Roger  Williams,  will  bend  joyfully  down 
to  us  from  Heaven  and  cry,  Well  done,  good  and  faith¬ 
ful  children!  [Prolonged  Applause.] 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


It  is  with  diffidence  that  I  rise  to  add  any  words  of 
mine  to  the  music  of  these  younger  voices.  This  day, 
gentlemen  of  the  graduating  class,  is  especially  yours. 
It  is  a  day  of  high  hope  and  expectation,  and  the 
counsels  that  fall  from  older  lips  should  be  carefully 
weighed,  lest  they  chill  the  ardor  of  a  generous  enthu¬ 
siasm  or  stay  the  all-conquering  faith  of  youth  that 
moves  the  world.  To  those  who,  constantly  and  active¬ 
ly  engaged  in  a  thousand  pursuits,  are  still  persuaded 
that  educated  intelligence  moulds  States  and  leads  man¬ 
kind,  no  day  in  the  year  is  more  significant,  more  in¬ 
spiring,  than  this  of  the  College  Commencement.  It 
matters  not  at  what  college  it  may  be  celebrated.  It 
is  the  same  at  all.  We  stand  here  indeed  beneath 
these  college  walls,  beautiful  for  situation,  girt  at  this 
moment  with  the  perfumed  splendor  of  midsummer, 
and  full  of  tender  memories  and  joyous  associations  to 
those  who  hear  me.  But  on  this  day,  and  on  other 
days,  at  a  hundred  other  colleges,  this  summer  sun  be¬ 
holds  the  same  spectacle  of  eager  and  earnest  throngs. 
The  faith  that  we  hold,  they  also  cherish.  It  is  the 
same  God  that  is  worshipped  at  the  different  altars.  It 


264  THE  public  duty  of  educated  men 

is  the  same  benediction  that  descends  upon  every 
reverent  head  and  believing  heart.  In  this  annual 
celebration  of  faith  in  the  power  and  the  responsibil¬ 
ity  of  educated  men,  all  the  colleges  in  the  country, 
in  whatever  State,  of  whatever  age,  of  whatever  relig¬ 
ious  sympathy  or  direction,  form  but  one  great  Union 
Uniyersity. 

But  the  interest  of  the  day  is  not  that  of  mere  study, 
of  sound  scholarship  as  an  end,  of  good  books  for  their 
own  sake,  but  of  education  as  a  power  in  human  affairs, 
of  educated  men  as  an  influence  in  the  commonwealth. 
“  Tell  me,”  said  an  American  scholar  of  Goethe,  the 
many-sided,  “  what  did  he  ever  do  for  the  cause  of 
man  ?”  The  scholar,  the  poet,  the  philosopher,  are 
men  among  other  men.  From  these  unavoidable  social 
relations  spring  opportunities  and  duties.  How  do 
they  use  them?  How  do  they  discharge  them?  Does 
the  scholar  show  in  his  daily  walk  that  he  has  studied 
the  wisdom  of  ages  in  vain?  Does  the  poet  sing  of 
angelic  purity  and  lead  an  unclean  life  ?  Does  the 
philosopher  peer  into  other  worlds  and  fail  to  help 
this  world  upon  its  way?  Four  years  before  our  civil 
war  the  same  scholar — it  was  Theodore  Parker — said 
sadly,  “  If  our  educated  men  had  done  their  duty, 
we  should  not  now  be  in  the  ghastly  condition  we 
bewail.”  The  theme  of  to-day  seems  to  me  to  be  pre¬ 
scribed  by  the  occasion.  It  is  the  festival  of  the  de¬ 
parture  of  a  body  of  educated  young  men  into  the 
world.  This  company  of  picked  recruits  marches  out 
with  beating  drums  and  flying  colors  to  join  the  army. 
We  who  feel  that  our  fate  is  gracious  which  allowed 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


265 


a  liberal  training,  are  here  to  welcome  and  to  advise. 
On  your  behalf,  Mr.  President  and  gentlemen,  with 
your  authority,  and  with  all  my  heart,  I  shall  say  a 
word  to  them  and  to  you  of  the  public  duty  of  edu¬ 
cated  men  in  America. 

I  shall  not  assume,  gentlemen  graduates,  for  I  know 
that  it  is  not  so,  that  what  Dr.  Johnson  says  of  the 
teachers  of  Rasselas  and  the  princes  of  Abyssinia  can  be 
truly  said  of  you  in  your  happy  valley — “  The  sages 
who  instructed  them  told  them  of  nothing  but  the  mis¬ 
eries  of  public  life,  and  described  all  beyond  the  moun¬ 
tains  as  regions  of  calamity  where  discord  was  always 
raging,  and  where  man  preyed  upon  man.”  The  sages 
who  have  instructed  you  are  American  citizens.  They 
know  that  patriotism  has  its  glorious  opportunities 
and  its  sacred  duties.  They  have  not  shunned  the 
one,  and  they  have  well  performed  the  other.  In  the 
sharpest  stress  of  our  awful  conflict,  a  clear  voice  of 
patriotic  warning  was  heard  from  these  peaceful  aca¬ 
demic  shades,  the  voice  of  the  venerated  teacher  whom 
this  University  still  freshly  deplores,*  drawing  from  the 
wisdom  of  experience  stored  in  his  ample  learning  a 
lesson  of  startling  cogency  and  power  from  the  history 
of  Greece  for  the  welfare  of  America. 

This  was  the  discharge  of  a  public  duty  by  an  edu¬ 
cated  man.  It  illustrated  an  indispensable  condition 
of  a  progressive  republic,  the  active,  practical  interest 
in  politics  of  the  most  intelligent  citizens.  Civil  and 
religious  liberty  in  this  country  can  be  preserved  only 

*  Professor  Tayler  Lewis  died  on  May  11,  1877.  The  work 
referred  to  was  his  “  Heroic  Periods  in  a  Nation’s  History.” 


266 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


through  the  agency  of  our  political  institutions.  But 
those  institutions  alone  will  not  suffice.  It  is  not  the 
ship  so  much  as  the  skilful  sailing  that  assures  the 
prosperous  voyage.  American  institutions  presuppose 
not  only  general  honesty  and  intelligence  in  the  peo¬ 
ple,  but  their  constant  and  direct  application  to  public 
affairs.  Our  system  rests  upon  all  the  people,  not 
upon  a  part  of  them,  and  the  citizen  who  evades  his 
share  of  the  burden  betrays  his  fellows.  Our  safety 
lies  not  in  our  institutions,  but  in  ourselves.  It  was 
under  the  forms  of  the  republic  that  Julius  Csesar 
made  himself  emperor  of  Rome.  It  was  while  professing 
reverence  for  the  national  traditions  that  James  II.  was 
destroying  religious  liberty  in  England.  To  labor,  said 
the  old  monks,  is  to  pray.  What  we  earnestly  desire 
we  earnestly  toil  for.  That  she  may  be  prized  more 
truly,  heaven-eyed  Justice  flies  from  us,  like  the  Tartar 
maid  from  her  lovers,  and  she  yields  her  embrace  at  last 
only  to. the  swiftest  and  most  daring  of  her  pursuers. 

By  the  words  public  duty  I  do  not  necessarily  mean 
official  duty,  although  it  may  include  that.  I  mean 
simply  that  constant  and  active  practical  participation 
in  the  details  of  politics  without  which,  upon  the  part 
of  the  most  intelligent  citizens,  the  conduct  of  public 
affairs  falls  under  the  control  of  selfish  and  ignorant, 
or  crafty  and  venal  men.  I  mean  that  personal  at- 
Mention — which,  as  it  must  be  incessant,  is  often  weari¬ 
some  and  even  repulsive — to  the  details  of  politics, 
attendance  at  meetings,  service  upon  committees,  care 
and  trouble  and  expense  of  many  kinds,  patient  en¬ 
durance  of  rebuffs,  chagrins,  ridicules,  disappointments, 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


267 


defeats — in  a  word,  all  those  duties  and  services  which, 
when  selfishly  and  meanly  performed,  stigmatize  a  man 
as  a  mere  politician ;  but  whose  constant,  honorable, 
intelligent,  and  vigilant  performance  is  the  gradual 
building,  stone  by  stone  and  layer  by  layer,  of  that 
great  temple  of  self-restrained  liberty  which  all  gener- 
^ous  souls  mean  that  our  government  shall  be. 

/Public  duty  in  this  country  is  not  discharged,  as  is 
so  often  supposed,  by  voting.  A  man  may  vote  reg¬ 
ularly  and  still  fail  essentially  of  his  political  duty,  as 
the  Pharisee,  who  gave  tithes  of  all  that  he  possessed 
and  fasted  three  times  in  the  week,  yet  lacked  the  very 
heart  of  religion.  When  an  American  citizen  is  con¬ 
tent  with  voting  merely,  he  consents  to  accept  what 
is  often  a  doubtful  alternative.  His  first  duty  is  to 
help  shape  the  alternative.  This,  which  was  formerly 
less  necessary,  is  now  indispensable.  In  a  rural  com¬ 
munity  such  as  this  country  was  a  hundred  years  ago, 
whoever  was  nominated  for  office  was  known  to  his 
neighbors,  and  the  consciousness  of  that  knowledge 
was  a  conservative  influence  in  determining  nomina¬ 
tions.  But  in  the  local  elections  of  the  great  cities  of 
to-day,  elections  that  control  taxation  and  expenditure, 

.  the  mass  of  the  voters  vote  in  absolute  ignorance  of 
the  candidates.  The  citizen  who  supposes  that  he 
does  all  his  duty  when  he  votes  places  a  premium 
upon  political  knavery.  Thieves  welcome  him  to  the 
polls  and  offer  him  a  choice,  which  he  has  done 
nothing  to  prevent,  between  Jeremy  Diddler  and  Dick 
Turpin.  The  party-cries  for  which  he  is  responsible 
are,  “  Turpin  and  Honesty,’'  “  Diddler  and  Reform.” 


268 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


And  within  a  few  years,  as  a  result  of  this  indifference 
to  the  details  of  public  duty,  the  most  powerful  poli¬ 
tician  in  the  Empire  State  of  the  Union  was  Jonathan 
Wild  the  Great,  the  captain  of  a  band  of  plunderers. 
I  know  it  is  said  that  the  knaves  have  taken  the  honest 
men  in  a  net,  and  have  contrived  machinery  which  will 
inevitably  grind  only  the  grist  of  rascals.  The  answer 
is,  that  when  honest  men  did  once  what  they  ought  to 
do  always,  the  thieves  were  netted  and  their  machine 
was  broken.  To  say  that  in  this  country  the  rogues 
must  rule,  is  to  defy  history  and  to  despair  of  the  re¬ 
public.  It  is  to  repeat  the  imbecile  executive  cries  of 
sixteen  years  ago,  “  Oh,  dear !  the  States  have  no  right 
to  go  ?”  and,  “  Oh,  dear !  the  nation  has  no  right  to 
help  itself.”  Let  the  Union,  stronger  than  ever  and 
unstained  with  national  wrong,  teach  us  the  power  of 
patriotic  virtue — and  Ludlow  Street  jail  console  those 
who  suppose  that  American  politics  must  necessarily 
be  a  game  of  thieves  and  bullies. 

If  ignorance  and  corruption  and  intrigue  control  the 
primary  meeting  and  manage  the  convention  and  dic¬ 
tate  the  nomination,  the  fault  is  in  the  honest  and  intel¬ 
ligent  workshop  and  office,  in  the  library  and  the  par¬ 
lor,  in  the  church  and  the  school.  When  these  are  as 
constant  and  faithful  to  their  political  rights  as  the 
slums  and  the  grog-shops,  the  pool-rooms  and  the 
kennels ;  when  the  educated,  industrious,  temperate, 
thrifty  citizens  are  as  zealous  and  prompt  and  unfail¬ 
ing  in  political  activity  as  the  ignorant  and  venal  and 
mischievous,  or  when  it  is  plain  that  they  cannot  be 
roused  to  their  duty,  then,  but  not  until  then — if 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN  269 

ignorance  and  corruption  always  carry  the  day — there 
can  be  no  honest  question  that  the  republic  has  failed. 
But  let  us  not  be  deceived. P"  While  good  men  sit  at 
home,  not  knowing  that  there  is  anything  to  be  done, 
nor  caring  to  know ;  cultivating  a  feeling  that  politics 
are  tiresome  and  dirty,  and  politicians  vulgar  bullies 
and  bravoes ;  half  persuaded  that  a  republic  is  the 
contemptible  rule  of  a  mob,  and  secretly  longing  for 
a  splendid  and  vigorous  despotism  —  then  remember 
it  is  not  ,a  government  mastered  by  ignorance,  it  is  a 
government  betrayed  by  intelligence  ;  it  is  not  the  vic¬ 
tory  of  the  slums,  it  is  the  surrender  of  the  schools ;  it 
is  not  that  bad  men  are  brave,  but  that  good  men  are 
infidels  and  cowards.  \j 

But,  gentlemen,  when  you  come  to  address  your¬ 
selves  to  these  primary  public  duties,  your  first  sur¬ 
prise  and  dismay  will  be  the  discovery  that,  in  a  coun¬ 
try  where  education  is  declared  to  be  the  hope  of  its 
institutions,  the  higher  education  is  often  practically 
held  to  be  almost  a  disadvantage.  You  will  go  from 
these  halls  to  hear  a  very  common  sneer  at  college- 
bred  men ;  to  encounter  a  jealousy  of  education,  as 
making  men  visionary  and  pedantic  and  impracticable ; 
to  confront  a  belief  that  there  is  something  enfeebling 
in  the  higher  education,  and  that  self-made  men,  as 
they  are  called,  are  the  sure  stay  of  the  State.  But 
what  is  really  meant  by  a  self-made  man?  It  is  a 
man  of  native  sagacity  and  strong  character,  who  was 
taught,  it  is  proudly  said,  only  at  the  plough  or  the 
anvil  or  the  bench.  He  was  schooled  by  adversity, 
and  was  polished  by  hard  attrition  with  men.  He  is 


27O  THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

Benjamin  Franklin,  the  printer’s  boy,  or  Abraham  Lin¬ 
coln,  the  rail-splitter.  They  never  went  to  college,  but 
nevertheless,  like  Agamemnon,  they  were  kings  of  men, 
and  the  world  blesses  their  memory. 

So  it  does;  but  the  sophistry  here  is  plain  enough, 
although  it  is  not  always  detected.  Great  genius  and 
force  of  character  undoubtedly  make  their  own  career. 
But  because  Walter  Scott  was  dull  at  school,  is  a  parent 
to  see  with  joy  that  his  son  is  a  dunce?  Because  Lord 
Chatham  was  of  a  towering  conceit,  must  we  infer  that 
pompous  vanity  portends  a  comprehensive  statesman¬ 
ship  that  will  fill  the  world  with  the  splendor  of  its  tri¬ 
umphs?  Because  Sir  Robert  Walpole  gambled  and 
swore  and  boozed  at  Houghton,  are  we  to  suppose  that 
gross  sensuality  and  coarse  contempt  of  human  nature 
are  the  essential  secrets  of  a  power  that  defended  lib¬ 
erty  against  Tory  intrigue  and  priestly  politics?  Was 
it  because  Benjamin  Franklin  was  not  college-bred  that 
he  drew  the  lightning  from  heaven  and  tore  the  sceptre 
from  the  tyrant?  Was  it  because  Abraham  Lincoln 
had  little  schooling  that  his  great  heart  beat  true  to 
God  and  man,  lifting  him  to  free  a  race  and  die  for  his 
country?  Because  men  naturally  great  have  done  great 
service  in  the  world  without  advantages,  does  it  follow 
that  lack  of  advantage  is  the  secret  of  success?  Was 
Pericles  a  less  sagacious  leader  of  the  State,  during  forty 
years  of  Athenian  glory,  because  he  was  thoroughly  ac¬ 
complished  in  every  grace  of  learning?  Or,  swiftly  pass¬ 
ing  from  the  Athenian  agora  to  the  Boston  town-meet¬ 
ing,  behold  Samuel  Adams,  tribune  of  New  England 
against  Old  England,  of  America  against  Europe,  of 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


271 


liberty  against  despotism.  Was  his  power  enfeebled, 
his  fervor  chilled,  his  patriotism  relaxed,  by  his  college 
education?  No,  no;  they  were  strengthened,  kindled, 
confirmed.  Taking  his  Masters  degree  one  hundred 
and  thirty-four  years  ago,  thirty-three  years  before  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  Samuel  Adams,  then  twen¬ 
ty-one  years  old,  declared  in  a  Latin  discourse — the  first 
flashes  of  the  fire  that  blazed  afterwards  in  Faneuil  Hall 
and  kindled  America — that  it  is  lawful  to  resist  the  su¬ 
preme  magistrate  if  the  commonwealth  cannot  other¬ 
wise  be  preserved.  In  the  very  year  that  Jefferson  was 
born,  the  college  boy,  Samuel  Adams,  on  a  Commence¬ 
ment  day  like  this,  on  an  academical  platform  like  this 
on  which  we  stand,  struck  the  key-note  of  American 
independence,  which  still  stirs  the  heart  of  man  with  its 
music. 

Or,  within  our  own  century,  look  at  the  great  modern 
statesmen  who  have  shaped  the  politics  of  the  world. 
They  were  educated  men ;  were  they  therefore  vision¬ 
ary,  pedantic,  impracticable  ?  Cavour,  whose  monument 
is  United  Italy — one  from  the  Alps  to  Tarentum,  from 
the  lagoons  of  Venice  to  the  gulf  of  Salerno;  Bismarck, 
who  has  raised  the  German  empire  from  a  name  to  a 
fact ;  Gladstone,  to-day  the  incarnate  heart  and  con¬ 
science  of  England — they  are  the  perpetual  refutation 
of  the  sneer  that  high  education  weakens  men  for  prac¬ 
tical  affairs.  Trained  themselves,  such  men  know  the 
value  of  training.  All  countries,  all  ages,  all  men,  are 
their  teachers.  The  broader  their  education,  the  wider 
the  horizon  of  their  thought  and  observation  ;  the  more 
affluent  their  resources,  the  more  humane  their  policy. 


272  THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

Would  Samuel  Adams  have  been  a  truer  popular  leader 
had  he  been  less  an  educated  man  ?  Would  Walpole 
the  less  truly  have  served  his  country  had  he  been,  with 
all  his  capacities,  a  man  whom  England  could  have  re¬ 
vered  and  loved  ?  Could  Gladstone  so  sway  England 
with  his  fervent  eloquence,  as  the  moon  the  tides,  were 
he  a  gambling,  swearing,  boozing  squire  like  Walpole  ? 
There  is  no  sophistry  more  poisonous  to  the  State,  no 
folly  more  stupendous  and  demoralizing,  than  the  no¬ 
tion  that  the  purest  character  and  the  highest  education 
are  incompatible  with  the  most  commanding  mastery  of 
men  and  the  most  efficient  administration  of  affairs. 

Undoubtedly  a  practical  and  active  interest  in  poli¬ 
tics  will  lead  you  to  party  association  and  co-operation. 
Great  public  results — the  repeal  of  the  corn-laws  in  Eng¬ 
land,  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  America — are  due  to 
that  organization  of  effort  and  concentration  of  aim 
which  arouse,  instruct,  and  inspire  the  popular  heart 
and  will.  This  is  the  spring  of  party,  and  those  who 
earnestly  seek  practical  results  instinctively  turn  to  this 
agency  of  united  action.  But  in  this  tendency,  useful  in 
the  State  as  the  fire  upon  the  household  hearth,  lurks, 
as  in  that  fire,  the  deadliest  peril.  Here  is  our  republic 
— it  is  a  ship  with  towering  canvas  spread,  sweeping  be¬ 
fore  the  prosperous  gale  over  a  foaming  and  sparkling 
sea;  it  is  a  lightning  train  darting  with  awful  speed 
along  the  edge  of  dizzy  abysses  and  across  bridges  that 
quiver  over  unsounded  gulfs.  Because  we  are  Ameri¬ 
cans,  we  have  no  peculiar  charm,  no  magic  spell,  to  stay 
the  eternal  laws.  Our  safety  lies  alone  in  cool  self-pos¬ 
session,  directing  the  forces  of  wind  and  wave  and  fire. 


275 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

plotting  the  overthrow  of  the  government  itself.  His¬ 
tory  is  lurid  with  the  wasting  fires  of  this  madness.  We 
need  not  look  to  that  of  other  lands.  Our  own  is  full 
of  it.  It  is  painful  to  turn  to  the  opening  years  of  the 
Union,  and  see  how  the  great  men  whom  we  are  taught 
to  revere,  and  to  whose  fostering  care  the  beginning  of 
the  republic  was  intrusted,  fanned  their  hatred  and  sus¬ 
picion  of  each  other.  Do  not  trust  the  flattering  voices 
that  whisper  of  a  Golden  Age  behind  us,  and  bemoan 
our  own  as  a  degenerate  day.  The  castles  of  hope  al¬ 
ways  shine  along  the  horizon.  Our  fathers  saw  theirs 
where  we  are  standing.  We  behold  ours  where  our  fa¬ 
thers  stood.  But  pensive  regret  for  the  heroic  past,  like 
eager  anticipation  of  the  future,  shows  only  that  the 
vision  of  a  loftier  life  forever  allures  the  human  soul. 
We  think  our  fathers  to  have  been  wiser  than  we,  and 
their  day  more  enviable.  But  eighty  years  ago  the 
Federalists  abhorred  their  opponents  as  Jacobins,  and 
thought  Robespierre  and  Marat  no  worse  than  Wash¬ 
ington’s  Secretary  of  State.  Their  opponents  retorted 
that  the  Federalists  were  plotting  to  establish  a  mon¬ 
archy  by  force  of  arms.  The  New  England  pulpit 
anathematized  Tom  Jefferson  as  an  atheist  and  a  satyr. 
Jefferson  denounced  John  Jay  as  a  rogue,  and  the  chief 
newspaper  of  the  opposition,  on  the  morning  that  Wash¬ 
ington  retired  from  the  Presidency,  thanked  God  that 
the  country  was  now  rid  of  the  man  who  was  the  source 
of  all  its  misfortunes.  There  is  no  mire  in  which  party 
spirit  wallows  to-day  with  which  our  fathers  were  not 
befouled ;  and  how  little  sincere  the  vituperation  was, 
how  shallow  a  fury,  appears  when  Jefferson  and  Adams 


276  THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

had  retired  from  public  life.  Then  they  corresponded 
placidly  and  familiarly,  each  at  last  conscious  of  the 
other’s  fervent  patriotism ;  and  when  they  died,  they 
were  lamented  in  common  by  those  who  in  their  names 
had  flown  at  each  other’s  throat,  as  the  patriarchal  Cas¬ 
tor  and  Pollux  of  the  pure  age  of  our  politics,  now  fixed 
as  a  constellation  of  hope  in  our  heaven. 

The  same  brutal  spirit  showed  itself  at  the  time  of 
Andrew  Johnson’s  impeachment.  Impeachment  is  a 
proceeding  to  be  instituted  only  for  great  public  rea¬ 
sons,  which  should,  presumptively,  command  universal 
support.  To  prostitute  the  power  of  impeachment  to 
a  mere  party  purpose  would  readily  lead  to  the  reversal 
of  the  result  of  an  election.  But  it  was  made  a  party 
measure.  The  party  was  to  be  whipped  into  its  sup¬ 
port  ;  and  when  certain  senators  broke  the  party  yoke 
upon  their  necks,  and  voted  according  to  their  convic¬ 
tions,  as  honorable  men  always  will  whether  the  party 
whips  like  it  or  not,  one  of  the  whippers-in  exclaimed  of 
a  patriotism,  the  struggle  of  obedience  to  which  cost  one 
senator,  at  least,  his  life,  “  If  there  is  anything  worse 
than  the  treachery,  it  is  the  cant  which  pretends  that  it 
is  the  result  of  conscientious  conviction ;  the  pretence 
of  a  conscience  is  quite  unbearable.”  This  was  the  very 
acridity  of  bigotry,  which  in  other  times  and  countries 
raised  the  cruel  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition  and  burned 
opponents  for  the  glory  of  God.  The  party  madness 
that  dictated  these  words,  and  the  sympathy  that  ap¬ 
proved  them,  were  treason  not  alone  to  the  country,  but 
to  well-ordered  human  society.  Murder  may  destroy 
great  statesmen,  but  corruption  makes  great  States  im- 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN  277 

possible,  and  this  was  an  attempt  at  the  most  insidious 
corruption.  The  man  who  attempts  to  terrify  a  senator 
of  the  United  States  into  casting  a  dishonest  vote,  by  stig¬ 
matizing  him  as  a  hypocrite  and  devoting  him  to  party 
hatred,  is  only  a  more  plausible  rascal  than  his  oppo¬ 
nent  who  gives  Pat  O’Flanagan  a  fraudulent  naturaliza¬ 
tion  paper  or  buys  his  vote  with  a  dollar  or  a  glass  of 
whiskey.  Whatever  the  offences  of  the  President  may 
have  been,  they  were  as  nothing  when  compared  with 
the  party  spirit  which  declared  that  it  was  tired  of  the 
intolerable  cant  of  honesty.  So  the  sneering  Cavalier 
was  tired  of  the  cant  of  the  Puritan  conscience ;  but  the 
conscience  of  which  plumed  Injustice  and  coroneted 
Privilege  were  tired  has  been  for  three  centuries  the  in¬ 
vincible  body-guard  of  civil  and  religious  liberty. 

Gentlemen,  how  dire  a  calamity  the  same  party  spirit 
was  preparing  for  the  country  within  a  few  months 
we  can  now  perceive  with  amazement  and  with  hearty 
thanksgiving  for  a  great  deliverance.  The  ordeal  of 
last  winter  was  the  severest  strain  ever  yet  applied  to 
republican  institutions.  It  was  a  mortal  strain  along 
the  very  fibre  of  our  system.  It  was  not  a  collision  of 
sections,  nor  a  conflict  of  principles  of  civilization.  It 
was  a  supreme  and  triumphant  test  of  American  patri¬ 
otism.  Greater  than  the  declaration  of  independence 
by  colonies  hopelessly  alienated  from  the  crown  and  al¬ 
ready  in  arms ;  greater  than  emancipation,  as  a  military 
expedient,  amid  the  throes  of  civil  war,  was  the  peace¬ 
ful  and  reasonable  consent  of  two  vast  parties — in  a 
crisis  plainly  foreseen  and  criminally  neglected,  a  crisis 
in  which  each  party  asserted  its  solution  to  be  indis- 


278  THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

putable — to  devise  a  lawful  settlement  of  the  tremen¬ 
dous  contest,  a  settlement  which,  through  furious  storms 
of  disappointment  and  rage,  has  been  religiously  re¬ 
spected.  We  are  told  that  our  politics  are  mean — that 
already,  in  its  hundredth  year,  the  decadence  of  the 
American  republic  appears  and  the  hope  of  the  world  is 
clouded.  But  tell  me,  scholars,  in  what  high  hour  of 
Greece,  when,  as  De  Witt  Clinton  declared,  “  the  herb- 
woman  of  Athens  could  criticise  the  phraseology  of 
Demosthenes,  and  the  meanest  artisan  could  pronounce 
judgment  on  the  works  of  Apelles  and  Phidias,”  or  at 
what  proud  epoch  of  imperial  Rome,  or  millennial  mo¬ 
ment  of  the  fierce  Italian  republics,  was  ever  so  mo¬ 
mentous  a  party  difference  so  wisely,  so  peacefully,  so 
humanely  composed  ?  Had  the  sophistry  of  party  pre¬ 
vailed  ;  had  each  side  resolved  that  not  to  insist  upon 
its  own  claim  at  every  hazard  was  what  the  mad  party 
spirit  of  each  side  declared  it  to  be — a  pusillanimous 
surrender ;  had  the  spirit  of  Marius  mastered  one  party 
and  that  of  Sylla  the  other,  this  waving  valley  of  the 
Mohawk  would  not  to-day  murmur  with  the  music  of 
industry,  these  tranquil  voices  of  scholars  blending 
with  its  happy  harvest  -  song ;  it  would  have  smoked 
and  roared  with  fraternal  war,  and  this  shuddering  river 
would  have  run  red  through  desolated  meadows  and 
by  burning  homes. 

It  is  because  these  consequences  are  familiar  to  the 
knowledge  of  educated  and  thoughtful  men  that  such 
men  are  constantly  to  assuage  this  party  fire  and  to  take 
care  that  'party  is  always  subordinated  to  patriotism. 
Perfect  party  discipline  is  the  most  dangerous  weapon 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


273 


If  once  the  madness  to  which  the  excitement  tends 
usurps  control,  the  catastrophe  is  inevitable.  And  so 
deep  is  the  conviction  that  sooner  or  later  this  mad¬ 
ness  must  seize  every  republic  that  the  most  plausible 
suspicion  of  the  permanence  of  the  American  govern¬ 
ment  is  founded  in  the  belief  that  party  spirit  cannot  be 
restrained.  It  is  indeed  a  master  passion,  but  its  con¬ 
trol  is  the  true  conservatism  of  the  republic  and  of  hap¬ 
py  human  progress  ;  and  it  is  men  made  familiar  by  ed¬ 
ucation  with  the  history  of  its  ghastly  catastrophes,  men 
with  the  proud  courage  of  independence,  who  are  to 
temper  by  lofty  action,  born  of  that  knowledge,  the  fe¬ 
rocity  of  party  spirit. 

The  first  object  of  concerted  political  action  is  the 
highest  welfare  of  the  country.  But  the  conditions  of 
party  association  are  such  that  the  means  are  constantly 
and  easily  substituted  for  the  end.  The  sophistry  is 
subtle  and  seductive.  Holding  the  ascendency  of  his 
party  essential  to  the  national  welfare,  the  zealous  par¬ 
tisan  merges  patriotism  in  party.  He  insists  that  not 
to  sustain  the  party  is  to  betray  the  country,  and  against 
all  honest  doubt  and  reasonable  hesitation  and  reluc¬ 
tance  he  vehemently  urges  that  quibbles  of  conscience 
must  be  sacrificed  to  the  public  good ;  that  wise  and 
practical  men  will  not  be  squeamish  ;  that  every  soldier 
in  the  army  cannot  indulge  his  own  whims  ;  and  that 
if  the  majority  may  justly  prevail  in  determining  the 
government,  it  must  not  be  questioned  in  the  control  of 
a  party. 

This  spirit  adds  moral  coercion  to  sophistry.  It  de¬ 
nounces  as  a  traitor  him  who  protests  against  party  tyr- 

I.— 18 


274 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


anny,  and  it  makes  unflinching  adherence  to  what  is 
called  regular  party  action  the  condition  of  the  gratifi¬ 
cation  of  honorable  political  ambition.  Because  a  man 
who  sympathizes  with  the  party  aims  refuses  to  vote 
for  a  thief,  this  spirit  scorns  him  as  a  rat  and  a  rene¬ 
gade.  Because  he  holds  to  principle  and  law  against 
party  expediency  and  dictation,  he  is  proclaimed  as 
the  betrayer  of  his  country,  justice,  and  humanity.  Be¬ 
cause  he  tranquilly  insists  upon  deciding  for  himself 
when  he  must  dissent  from  his  party,  he  is  reviled  as  a 
popinjay  and  a  visionary  fool.  Seeking  with  honest 
purpose  only  the  welfare  of  his  country,  the  hot  air 
around  him  hums  with  the  cry  of  “the  grand  old  party,” 
“the  traditions  of  the  party,”  “loyalty  to  the  party,” 
“future  of  the  party,”  “servant  of  the  party”;  and  he 
sees  and  hears  the  gorged  and  portly  money-changers 
in  the  temple  usurping  the  very  divinity  of  the  God. 
Young  hearts  !  be  not  dismayed.  If  ever  any  one  of 
you  shall  be  the  man  so  denounced,  do  not  forget  that 
your  own  individual  convictions  are  the  whip  of  small 
cords  which  God  has  put  into  your  hands  to  expel  the 
blasphemers. 

The  same  party  spirit  naturally  denies  the  patriotism 
of  its  opponents.  Identifying  itself  with  the  country,  it 
regards  all  others  as  public  enemies.  This  is  substan¬ 
tially  revolutionary  politics.  It  is  the  condition  of 
France,  where,  in  its  own  words,  the  revolution  is  per¬ 
manent.  Instead  of  regarding  the  other  party  as  legiti¬ 
mate  opponents — in  the  English  phrase,  His  Majesty’s 
Opposition — lawfully  seeking  a  different  policy  under 
the  government,  it  decries  that  party  as  a  conspiracy 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN  279 

of  party  spirit,  for  it  is  the  abdication  of  the  individual 
judgment :  it  is  the  application  to  political  parties  of 
the  Jesuit  principle  of  implicit  obedience. 

It  is  for  you  to  help  break  this  withering  spell.  It  is 
for  you  to  assert  the  independence  and  the  dignity  of 
the  individual  citizen,  and  to  prove  that  party  was  made 
for  the  voter,  not  the  voter  for  party.  When  you  are 
angrily  told  that  if  you  erect  your  personal  whim 
against  the  regular  party  behest,  you  make  representa¬ 
tive  government  impossible  by  refusing  to  accept  its 
conditions,  hold  fast  by  your  own  conscience  and  let 
the  party  go.  There  is  not  an  American  merchant  who 
would  send  a  ship  to  sea  under  the  command  of  Cap¬ 
tain  Kidd,  however  skilful  a  sailor  he  might  be.  Why 
should  he  vote  to  send  Captain  Kidd  to  the  legislature 
or  to  put  him  in  command  of  the  ship  of  state  because 
his  party  directs?  The  party  which  to-day  nominates 
Captain  Kidd  will  to-morrow  nominate  Judas  Iscariot, 
and  to-morrow,  as  to-day,  party  spirit  will  spurn  you  as 
a  traitor  for  refusing  to  sell  your  master.  “  I  tell  you,” 
said  an  ardent  and  well-meaning  partisan,  speaking  of  a 
closely  contested  election  in  another  State — “  I  tell  you 
it  is  a  nasty  State,  and  I  hope  we  have  done  nasty  work 
enough  to  carry  it.”  But  if  your  State  has  been  carried 
by  nasty  means  this  year,  success  will  require  nastier 
next  year,  and  the  nastiest  means  will  always  carry  it. 
The  party  may  win,  but  the  State  will  have  been  lost, 
for  there  are  successes  which  are  failures.  When  a  man 
is  sitting  upon  the  bough  of  a  tree  and  diligently  saw¬ 
ing  it  off  between  himself  and  the  trunk,  he  may  suc¬ 
ceed,  but  his  success  will  break  his  neck. 


280 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


The  remedy  for  the  constant  excess  of  party  spirit 
lies,  and  lies  alone,  in  the  courageous  independence  of 
the  individual  citizen.  The  only  way,  for  instance,  to 
procure  the  party  nomination  of  good  men,  is  for  every 
self-respecting  voter  to  refuse  to  vote  for  bad  men.  In 
the  mediaeval  theology  the  devils  feared  nothing  so 
much  as  the  drop  of  holy  water  and  the  sign  of  the 
cross,  by  which  they  were  exorcised.  The  evil  spirits 
of  party  fear  nothing  so  much  as  bolting  and  scratch¬ 
ing.  In  hoc  signo  vinces .  If  a  farmer  would  reap  a 
good  crop,  he  scratches  the  weeds  out  of  his  field.  If 
we  would  have  good  men  upon  the  ticket,  we  must 
scratch  bad  men  off.  If  the  scratching  breaks  down 
the  party,  let  it  break ;  for  the  success  of  the  party  by 
such  means  would  break  down  the  country.  The  evil 
spirits  must  be  taught  by  means  that  they  can  under¬ 
stand.  “  Them  fellers,”  said  the  captain  of  a  canal-boat 
of  his  men  —  “them  fellers  never  think  you  mean  a 
thing  until  you  kick  ’em.  They  feel  that,  and  under¬ 
stand.” 

It  is  especially  necessary  for  us  to  perceive  the  vital 
relation  of  individual  courage  and  character  to  the  com¬ 
mon  welfare,  because  ours  is  a  government  of  public 
opinion,  and  public  opinion  is  but  the  aggregate  of  indi¬ 
vidual  thought.  We  have  the  awful  responsibility  as  a 
community  of  doing  what  we  choose,  and  it  is  of  the 
last  importance  that  we  choose  to  do  what  is  wise  and 
right.  [  In  the  early  days  of  the  antislavery  agitation  a 
meeting  was  called  at  Faneuil  Hall,  in  Boston,  which 
a  good-natured  mob  of  sailors  was  hired  to  suppress. 
They  took  possession  of  the  floor  and  danced  break- 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


281 


downs  and  shouted  choruses  and  refused  to  hear  any 
of  the  orators  upon  the  platform.  The  most  eloquent 
pleaded  with  them  in  vain.  They  were  urged  by  the 
memories  of  the  Cradle  of  Liberty,  for  the  honor  of 
Massachusetts,  for  their  own  honor  as  Boston  boys,  to 
respect  liberty  of  speech.  But  they  still  laughed  and 
sang  and  danced,  and  were  proof  against  every  appeal. 
At  last  a  man  suddenly  arose  from  among  themselves 
and  began  to  speak.  Struck  by  his  tone  and  quaint 
appearance,  and  with  the  thought  that  he  might  be  one 
of  themselves,  the  mob  became  suddenly  still.  “  Well, 
fellow-citizens,”  he  said,  “  I  wouldn’t  be  quiet  if  I  didn’t 
want  to.”  The  words  were  greeted  with  a  roar  of  de¬ 
light  from  the  mob,  which  supposed  it  had  found  its 
champion,  and  the  applause  was  unceasing  for  five  min¬ 
utes,  during  which  the  strange  orator  tranquilly  awaited 
his  chance  to  continue.  The  wish  to  hear  more  hushed 
the  tumult,  and  when  the  hall  was  still  he  resumed, 
“  No,  I  certainly  wouldn’t  stop  if  I  hadn’t  a  mind  to  ; 
but  then,  if  I  were  you,  I  would  have  a  mind  to !”  The 
oddity  of  the  remark  and  the  earnestness  of  the  tone 
held  the  crowd  silent,  and  the  speaker  continued  :  “  Not 
because  this  is  Faneuil  Hall,  nor  for  the  honor  of  Mas¬ 
sachusetts,  nor  because  you  are  Boston  boys,  but  be¬ 
cause  you  are  men,  and  because  honorable  and  generous 
men  always  love  fair  play.”  The  mob  was  conquered. 
Free  speech  and  fair  play  were  secured. J  Public  opinion 
can  do  what  it  has  a  mind  to  in  this  country.  If  it  be 
debased  and  demoralized,  it  is  the  most  odious  of  ty¬ 
rants.  It  is  Nero  and  Caligula  multiplied  by  millions. 
Can  there  then  be  a  more  stringent  public  duty  for 


282 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


every  man — and  the  greater  the  intelligence  the  greater 
the  duty — than  to  take  care,  by  all  the  influence  he  can 
command,  that  the  country,  the  majority,  public  opin¬ 
ion,  shall  have  a  mind  to  do  only  what  is  just  and  pure 
and  humane  ? 

Gentlemen,  leaving  this  college  to  take  your  part  in 
the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  American  citizenship, 
every  sign  encourages  and  inspires.  The  year  that  is 
now  ending,  the  year  that  opens  the  second  century  of 
our  history,  has  furnished  the  supreme  proof  that  in  a 
country  of  rigorous  party  division  the  purest  patriotism 
exists.  That  and  that  only  is  the  pledge  of  a  prosper¬ 
ous  future.  No  mere  party  fervor  or  party  fidelity  or 
party  discipline  could  fully  restore  a  country  torn  and 
distracted  by  the  fierce  debate  of  a  century  and  the 
convulsions  of  civil  war ;  nothing  less  than  a  patriotism 
all-embracing  as  the  summer  air  could  heal  a  wound  so 
wide.  I  know — no  man  better — how  hard  it  is  for  ear¬ 
nest  men  to  separate  their  country  from  their  party,  or 
their  religion  from  their  sect.  But  nevertheless  the 
welfare  of  the  country  is  dearer  than  the  mere  victory 
of  party,  as  truth  is  more  precious  than  the  interest  of 
any  sect.  You  will  hear  this  patriotism  scorned  as  an 
impracticable  theory,  as  the  dream  of  a  cloister,  as  the 
whim  of  a  fool.  But  such  was  the  folly  of  the  Spartan 
Leonidas,  staying  with  his  three  hundred  the  Persian 
horde  and  teaching  Greece  the  self-reliance  that  saved 
her.  Such  was  the  folly  of  the  Swiss  Arnold  von  Win- 
kelried,  gathering  into  his  own  breast  the  host  of  Aus¬ 
trian  spears,  making  his  dead  body  the  bridge  of  victory 
for  his  countrymen.  Such  was  the  folly  of  the  Amer- 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN  283 

ican  Nathan  Hale,  gladly  risking  the  seeming  disgrace 
of  his  name,  and  grieving  that  he  had  but  one  life  to 
give  for  his  country.  Such  are  the  beacon-lights  of  a 
pure  patriotism  that  burn  forever  in  men’s  memories 
and  answer  each  other  through  the  illuminated  ages. 
And  of  the  same  grandeur,  in  less  heroic  and  poetic 
form,  was  the  patriotism  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  recent 
history.  He  was  the  leader  of  a  great  party  and  the 
prime  minister  of  England.  The  character  and  neces¬ 
sity  of  party  were  as  plain  to  him  as  to  any  man.  But 
when  he  saw  that  the  national  welfare  demanded  the 
repeal  of  the  corn  -  laws  which  he  had  always  sup¬ 
ported,  he  did  not  quail.  Amply  avowing  the  error 
of  a  life  and  the  duty  of  avowing  it — foreseeing  the 
probable  overthrow  of  his  party  and  the  bitter  exe¬ 
cration  that  must  fall  upon  him,  he  tranquilly  did  his 
duty.  With  the  eyes  of  England  fixed  upon  him  in 
mingled  amazement,  admiration,  and  indignation,  he 
rose  in  the  House  of  Commons  to  perform  as  great 
a  service  as  any  English  statesman  ever  performed  for 
his  country,  and  in  closing  his  last  speech  in  favor  of 
the  repeal,  describing  the  consequences  that  its  mere 
prospect  had  produced,  he  loftily  exclaimed :  “  Where 
there  was  dissatisfaction,  I  see  contentment ;  where 
there  was  turbulence,  I  see  there  is  peace ;  where  there 
was  disloyalty,  I  see  there  is  loyalty.  I  see  a  dispo¬ 
sition  to  confide  in  you,  and  not  to  agitate  questions 
that  are  the  foundations  of  your  institutions.”  When 
all  was  over,  when  he  had  left  office,  when  his  party 
was  out  of  power  and  the  fury  of  party  execration 
against  him  was  spent,  his  position  was  greater  and 


284  THE  public  duty  of  educated  men 

nobler  than  it  had  ever  been.  Cobden  said  of  him, 
“  Sir  Robert  Peel  has  lost  office,  but  he  has  gained 
a  country”;  and  Lord  Dalling  said  of  him,  what  may 
truly  be  said  of  Washington,  “  Above  all  parties, 
himself  a  party,  he  had  trained  his  own  mind  into 
a  disinterested  sympathy  with  the  intelligence  of  his 
country.” 

A  public  spirit  so  lofty  is  not  confined  to  other  ages 
and  lands.  You  are  conscious  of  its  stirrings  in  your 
souls.  It  calls  you  to  courageous  service,  and  I  am 
here  to  bid  you  obey  the  call.  Such  patriotism  may 
be  ours.  Let  it  be  your  parting  vow  that  it  shall  be 
yours.  Bolingbroke  described  a  patriot  king  in  Eng¬ 
land  ;  I  can  imagine  a  patriot  president  in  America. 
I  can  see  him  indeed  the  choice  of  a  party,  and  called 
to  administer  the  government  when  sectional  jealousy 
is  fiercest  and  party  passion  most  inflamed.  I  can  im¬ 
agine  him  seeing  clearly  what  justice  and  humanity, 
the  national  law  and  the  national  welfare  require  him 
to  do,  and  resolved  to  do  it.  I  can  imagine  him  pa¬ 
tiently  enduring  not  only  the  mad  cry  of  party  hate, 
the  taunt  of  “recreant”  and  “traitor,”  of  “renegade” 
and  “  coward,”  but  what  is  harder  to  bear,  the  amaze¬ 
ment,  the  doubt,  the  grief,  the  denunciation,  of  those 
as  sincerely  devoted  as  he  to  the  common  welfare.  I 
can  imagine  him  pushing  firmly  on,  trusting  the  heart, 
the  intelligence,  the  conscience  of  his  countrymen,  heal¬ 
ing  angry  wounds,  correcting  misunderstandings,  plant¬ 
ing  justice  on  surer  foundations,  and,  whether  his  party 
rise  or  fall,  lifting  his  country  heavenward  to  a  more 
perfect  union,  prosperity,  and  peace.  This  is  the  spirit 


THE  PUBLIC  DUTY  OF  EDUCATED  MEN  285 

of  a  patriotism  that  girds  the  commonwealth  with  the 
resistless  splendor  of  the  moral  law — the  invulnerable 
panoply  of  States,  the  celestial  secret  of  a  great  nation 
and  a  happy  people. 


. 


* 


XII 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 

AN  ADDRESS  MADE  AT  THE  ANNUAL  CONVENTION  OF 
THE  NEW  YORK  STATE  PRESS  ASSOCIATION,  AT 
UTICA,  N.  Y.,  JUNE  8,  l88l 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


New  York  is  well  called  the  Empire  State.  Within 
its  vast  domain  mountain  and  forest,  city  and  town, 
teeming  field  and  humming  valley  and  waste  sea-shore, 
blend  their  romance,  their  resources,  and  their  power. 
Its  green  uplands  pour  their  abounding  waters  north¬ 
ward  into  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and  southward  into 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Through  its  luxuriant  intervales 
stretch  the  great  water  and  iron  ways  along  which 
hasten  the  exhaustless  harvests  of  America  to  feed  the 
world.  From  the  ocean  to  Lake  Erie  is  strung  a  chain 
of  cities  and  towns — a  glittering  girdle  of  jewels ;  and 
the  chief  city  of  the  State  is  the  metropolis  of  the  con¬ 
tinent — its  golden  gate  of  commerce,  the  fourth  city  of 
the  world.  The  sun  sees  no  prouder  or  more  prosper¬ 
ous  community;  and  over  this  magnificent  and  majes¬ 
tic  territory,  these  populous  and  happy  homes,  these 
endless  schools  and  work-shops  and  sky-pointing  spires, 
over  all  this  various  intelligence  and  industry  and  opu¬ 
lence,  the  Adirondacks  call  joyously  to  the  Catskills, 
and  Niagara  thunders  ceaselessly  to  Montauk,  “  This  is 
New  York;  this  is  the  Empire  State.” 

Assembled  here  as  citizens  of  that  State,  who  through 
I.— 19 


290 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


the  press  utter  its  immediate  voice  and  direct  its 
mighty  influence  upon  public  opinion,  it  is  natural 
that  we  should  mingle  with  our  congratulations  some 
thought  of  the  reasons  of  honorable  pride  in  the  his¬ 
tory  of  our  commonwealth,  and  that  we  should  ask 
whether  any  great  incident  in  that  history  is  pecul¬ 
iarly  suggestive  to  us  as  conductors  of  the  press. 

New  York,  the  greatest  of  the  States,  has  always 
shown  the  generous  carelessness  of  greatness.  Of  the 
old  thirteen  she  has  been  most  indifferent  to  her  own 
renown.  Massachusetts  and  Virginia,  her  Revolution¬ 
ary  peers,  have  constantly  cherished  with  fond  devotion 
their  local  traditions  and  the  names  of  their  eminent 
children;  while  New  York — as  if  the  national  element 
of  its  first  settlers  still  ruled  its  temperament — grown 
immeasurably  prosperous,  sits  like  an  old  Dutch  burgh¬ 
er  smoking  upon  his  stoop,  and  watching  with  good- 
natured  indolence  the  eagerness  of  his  neighbors  as 
they  proudly  scour  the  family  escutcheon  and  build 
monuments  to  their  ancestors.  There  is  not  a  child  in 
New  England  whose  heart  does  not  leap  at  the  name 
of  Concord  and  Lexington,  of  Bennington  and  Bunker 
Hill.  But  there  was  many  a  man  in  New  York  to 
whose  blood,  four  years  ago,  the  name  of  Oriskany 
brought  no  thrill,  and  to  whom  the  splendid  Revolu¬ 
tionary  story  of  the  Hudson,  on  which  the  sovereignty 
of  the  continent  was  lost  and  won,  is  almost  unknown. 

Yet  the  history  of  no  State  is  more  inspiring  than 
ours.  New  York  is  a  palimpsest.  Its  great  empire  of 
to-day  is  written  over  the  great  empire  of  the  five  Ind¬ 
ian  nations  whose  sonorous  names  survive  in  those  of 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


291 


four  of  the  noble  counties  of  central  New  York,  Onei¬ 
da  and  Onondaga,  Cayuga  and  Seneca,  and  in  that  of 
the  beautiful  and  beneficent  Mohawk,  the  river  upon 
whose  shores  we  stand.  Like  the  heroes  before  Aga¬ 
memnon,  the  Indians  had  no  poet  to  sing  their  story. 
But  it  lives  in  fragmentary  legend.  Through  Lake  On¬ 
tario  and  Lake  Erie  at  the  west,  and  Lake  George  and 
Lake  Champlain  at  the  north ;  through  the  valleys  of 
the  Mohawk  and  the  Hudson,  the  Susquehanna  and 
the  Delaware,  the  Alleghany  and  the  Ohio,  the  power 
of  the  confederacy  swept  as  resistlessly  as  the  rivers 
themselves,  until  it  was  supreme  from  Canada  to  the 
Carolinas,  from  the  ocean  to  the  Mississippi. 

Thus  the  imperial  tradition  of  the  Iroquois  fills  the 
State  with  romantic  interest  before  our  annals  begin ; 
and  the  first  distinction  of  the  story  of  the  white  race 
here,  the  glory  of  the  Dutch  settlement  of  New  York, 
is  its  Indian  policy.  This  was  mainly  the  work  of  the 
Dutch  superintendent,  Arent  Van  Corlaer,  whose  weap¬ 
ons  in  dealing  with  the  Indians  were  not  powder  and 
shot,  but  good  faith,  sagacity,  and  humanity.  To  the 
Indian  mind  he  identified  these  qualities  with  the  white 
skin,  so  that  when  the  English  succeeded  the  Dutch 
and  happily  retained  the  Dutch  policy,  the  Indians  al¬ 
ways  called  the  English  governor  by  the  name  of  their 
first  white  friend,  Corlaer.  In  the  final  contest  for  the 
continent  with  France,  it  was  the  fidelity  of  the  Iro¬ 
quois  which  gave  this  region  to  the  supreme  dominion 
and  civilization  of  the  English  race,  and  that  fidelity 
was  due  to  the  Dutch  Indian  policy  of  honesty  and 
justice ;  a  policy  which  held  that  red  men  had  rights 


292 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


which  white  men  were  bound  to  respect.  Roger  Will¬ 
iams  in  Rhode  Island,  William  Penn  in  Pennsylvania, 
Arent  Van  Corlaer,  Peter  Schuyler,  and  Sir  William 
Johnson  in  New  York,  lived  at  peace  with  the  Indians; 
and  if  our  national  Indian  policy  has  been  a  blot  upon 
our  fame,  it  is  because  we  have  discarded  #the  early  New 
York  Indian  statesmanship  of  justice  and  humanity. 

As  the  country  ripened  towards  the  Revolution,  and 
the  colonial  heart  glowed  more  and  more  with  the  pas¬ 
sion  of  union  and  independence,  the  story  of  New  York 
is  worthy  of  proud  remembrance,  although  the  indiffer¬ 
ence  of  her  citizens  suffers  it  to  be  neglected  and  half 
forgotten.  Nowhere  were  American  principles  earlier 
or  more  stoutly  asserted,  nowhere  were  they  more  he¬ 
roically  and  triumphantly  defended.  Unlike  the  other 
colonies,  New  York  had  no  rights  of  Englishmen  guar¬ 
anteed  by  royal  charter.  It  depended  wholly  upon  the 
king’s  will,  and  it  lacked  the  homogeneity  of  popula¬ 
tion  which  made  its  great  neighbor,  New  England,  a  re¬ 
sistless  Revolutionary  force.  Even  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  when  New  England  was  peopled  with  an  un¬ 
adulterated  English  stock,  there  were  sixteen  different 
languages  spoken  in  the  province  of  New  York.  But 
the  Dutch  instinct  of  liberty  was  strong,  and  the  sur¬ 
render  to  the  English  in  1664  provided  that  the  town 
of  Manhattan  should  choose  deputies,  with  a  free  voice 
in  all  public  affairs ;  and  from  that  time  to  the  Dongan 
charter,  in  1683,  there  was  a  constant  contest  for  a 
popular  assembly.  Three  years  later,  when  the  Don¬ 
gan  charter  was  revoked,  the  struggle  was  renewed. 
Throughout  the  eighteenth  century  the  colony  wres- 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


293 


tied  with  the  royal  governors  for  the  essential  right  of 
self-government,  and,  although  the  first  proposition  to 
raise  a  tax  in  the  colonies  by  stamped  paper  came  from 
a  lieutenant  governor  of  New  York,  in  1744,  yet  when, 
twenty  years  afterwards,  the  stamp  -  act  was  passed,  it 
was  a  New  York  newspaper  which  was  among  the  ear¬ 
liest  voices  to  raise  the  battle-cry  of  the  Revolution,  “No 
taxation  without  representation.”  It  was  a  New  York 
assembly  which  first  demanded  the  repeal  of  the  stamp- 
act,  and  on  the  day  of  the  demand  established  the 
first  colonial  committee  of  correspondence,  from  which 
sprang  the  colonial  and  the  continental  congress.  In 
the  same  year,  the  year  in  which  the  mind  of  the  col¬ 
onies  was  thoroughly  aroused,  John  Morin  Scott,  a 
young  man  who,  at  the  Whig  Club,  had  toasted  the 
immortal  memory  of  Oliver  Cromwell  and  John  Hamp¬ 
den,  and  who  was  now  a  foremost  leader  of  the  Sons 
of  Liberty,  with  the  prophetic  instinct  of  patriotism 
declared,  in  Holt’s  Gazette — for  already  the  newspaper 
was  the  pioneer  of  liberty — that  if  it  were  necessary  for 
the  mother  country  that  the  colonies  should  be  taxed 
without  representation,  the  connection  between  them 
ought  to  cease,  and  sooner  or  later  it  must  inevitably 
cease.  This  was  the  earliest  voice  for  independence, 
and  it  was  the  voice  of  New  York.  It  echoed  and  re¬ 
echoed  through  the  colonies  the  first  notes  of  the  con¬ 
tinental  paean  that  swelled  louder  and  louder  into  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

In  the  same  year  the  two  hundred  principal  residents 
of  New  York  adopted  the  first  non-importation  agree¬ 
ment  against  Great  Britain ;  and  five  years  later — two 


294  NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 

months  before  the  Boston  massacre — the  similar  con¬ 
flict,  known  as  the  battle  of  Golden  Hill,  was  fought  in 
the  streets  of  the  city  of  New  York,  and  the  first  Amer¬ 
ican  blood  of  the  Revolution  was  shed  by  British  sol¬ 
diers.  As  the  first  congress  for  the  union  of  the  colo¬ 
nies  against  the  French  had  met  in  Albany  in  1674,  so 
when  James  Otis  proposed  the  stamp-act  congress,  in 
1765,  New  York,  ripe  and  ready,  promptly  responded; 
and  in  New  York  was  held  the  colonial  congress  by 
which  the  union  of  the  United  States  of  America  was 
really  founded.  When  at  last  the  actual  struggle  of 
arms  began,  I  believe  that  New  York  was  the  only  col¬ 
ony  that  furnished  her  full  share  of  men,  money,  and 
supplies;  and  here  in  this  very  valley,  at  old  Fort 
Schuyler,  not  far  away,  the  American  stars  and  stripes 
first  saluted  the  morning ;  and  it  was  on  the  soil  of 
New  York,  on  the  wooded  banks  of  the  Hudson,  the 
stately  river  for  whose  possession  the  chief  campaign 
of  the  Revolution  was  fought,  that  the  decisive  victory 
was  won  which  secured  the  independence  of  the  united 
colonies. 

These,  and  such  as  these,  are  the  historic  glories  of 
New  York.  But  we  claim  them  in  no  captious  or  self¬ 
ish  spirit.  They  are  glories  for  which,  with  honorable 
pride,  more  than  one  State  earnestly  contends.  We 
think  that  New  York  first  called  for  committees  of 
correspondence,  but  Massachusetts  and  Virginia  chal¬ 
lenge  the  claim.  We  think  that  John  Morin  Scott  first 
spoke  of  possible  independence,  but  South  Carolina  is 
sure  that  Christopher  Gadsden  spoke  before  him ;  and 
Massachusetts  cannot  admit  that  any  voice  of  patriotic 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


295 


prophecy  was  earlier  than  that  of  Samuel  Adams.  In 
the  great  spirit  of  those  great  men  let  us  concede  that 
all  were  first.  It  was  a  glorious  emulation  of  patriotism 
in  every  colony;  but  New  York,  too  careless  of  her 
fame,  may  proudly  declare  that  she  did  not  lag  behind, 
but  marched  shoulder  to  shoulder  and  heart  to  heart 
with  all  her  brethren.  When  the  news  of  the  Boston 
port  bill  reached  Virginia,  and  Patrick  Henry  exclaimed, 
“  I  am  no  longer  a  Virginian,  I  am  an  American,”  he 
spoke  equally  for  New  England  and  New  York.  It 
was  the  harmonious  voice  of  Otis  and  Adams,  of  Frank¬ 
lin  and  Gadsden,  of  John  Morin  Scott  and  Alexander 
Hamilton.  It  was  the  sublime  chorus  of  all  the  colo¬ 
nies  ;  the  birth-cry  of  the  nation  whose  magnificent  ma¬ 
turity  we  behold. 

But  there  is  one  event  in  the  history  of  New  York 
which  is  almost  greater  than  any  of  these,  and  which  is 
especially  to  be  remembered  by  us  and  upon  this  occa¬ 
sion.  It  belongs  with  her  early  Indian  policy,  with  her 
bold  demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  stamp-act,  with  her 
declaration  of  no  taxation  without  representation,  with 
her  proud  prophecy  of  independence,  her  non-importa¬ 
tion  agreement,  her  stamp-act  congress,  and  her  immor¬ 
tal  days  of  Oriskany  and  Saratoga.  It  was  in  New 
York  that  the  freedom  of  the  press  was  first  asserted 
on  this  continent  and  triumphantly  maintained.  The 
story  is  familiar,  but  it  ought  to  be  told  to-day. 

In  1725,  the  famous  printer,  William  Bradford,  issued 
the  first  newspaper  in  New  York,  the  New  York  Ga¬ 
zette.  Favored  by  the  government,  it  supported  the 
governor.  But  the  people  grew  weary  of  the  endless 


296  NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 

rapacity  of  the  royal  favorites  who  were  sent  over  to 
rule  them,  and  in  1732,  when  Governor  Cosby,  to  ad¬ 
vance  a  suit  of  his  own,  removed  the  chief  justice  of 
the  province,  sneering  that  the  people  were  tainted 
with  “  Boston  principles,”  and  that  he  had  great  polit¬ 
ical  interest  in  England  to  protect  him  in  anything  he 
chose  to  do,  a  storm  of  popular  indignation  broke  upon 
him  in  lampoons  and  ballads  and  scorching  denuncia¬ 
tion.  The  storm  did  not  blow  over.  In  the  next  year, 
1733,  John  Peter  Zenger,  who  had  been  Bradford’s  ap¬ 
prentice  and  partner,  issued  a  new  paper,  the  New  York 
Weekly  Journal ,  as  the  advocate  of  the  popular  opposi¬ 
tion.  It  opened  an  incessant  battery  of  argument  and 
wit  and  raillery  and  satire  against  the  government — a 
cannonade  of  hot  shot  which  was  music  to  the  public 
ear,  but  warning  thunder  to  the  governor  and  council. 
After  copies  of  the  paper  had  been  publicly  but  vainly 
burned  by  their  order,  Zenger  was  arrested  and  impris¬ 
oned  on  a  charge  of  seditious  libel.  In  jail,  where  he 
lay  for  nine  months,  he  still  edited  his  paper.  The 
grand  jury  refused  to  find  an  indictment,  but  the  at¬ 
torney-general  filed  an  information  for  malicious  and 
seditious  libel,  and  when  Zenger’s  counsel  excepted  to 
the  commissions  of  two  of  the  judges  as  illegal,  the 
court  struck  the  names  of  the  counsel  from  the  list  of 
attorneys.  The  only  other  able  lawyer  in  New  York 
had  been  retained  by  the  governor,  and  Zenger  was 
left  virtually  without  counsel. 

But  Andrew  Hamilton,  the  most  eloquent  advocate 
in  Pennsylvania,  and  famous  through  all  the  colo¬ 
nies,  heard  the  cry  from  New  York.  He  was  eighty 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


297 


years  old,  but  age  had  not  withered  him,  and,  born  dur¬ 
ing  the  great  struggle  of  the  English  commonwealth, 
its  principles  had  been  his  natal  air,  and  his  heart  beat 
high  for  liberty.  He  came  from  Philadelphia  to  New 
York,  and  appeared  before  the  amazed  court  to  plead 
for  Zenger.  With  impassioned  eloquence,  Hamilton, 
who  doubtless  knew  by  heart  Milton’s  immortal  plea 
for  Unlicensed  Printing,  made  his  own  great  argument. 
He  admitted  the  publication  of  the  articles.  “  Then 
the  verdict  must  be  for  the  king,”  cried  the  attorney- 
general.  “Not  so,”  answered  Hamilton;  “the  jury  are 
judges  of  the  law  and  the  fact,  and  if  it  be  truth  it  is 
not  a  libel.”  With  infinite  skill  and  sparkling  humor 
he  followed  with  remorseless  logic  the  attorney-gener¬ 
al’s  plea,  searching  his  sophistry,  confounding  him  at 
every  point,  and  then,  with  a  proud  and  lofty  pathetic 
appeal,  Hamilton  declared  that  it  was  not  the  cause  of 
a  poor  printer,  nor  of  New  York  alone,  but  of  America 
and  of  liberty,  that  was  committed  to  the  jury,  and  to 
their  just  and  incorrupt  verdict  he  looked  with  confi¬ 
dence  for  the  defence  of  the  liberty  to  which  nature 
and  the  law  entitled  their  fellow-citizen  ;  “  the  liberty 
of  both  exposing  and  opposing  arbitrary  power,  in  these 
parts  of  the  world  at  least,  by  speaking  and  writing 
truth.” 

When  Sir  Henry  Vane  was  carried  to  the  scaffold,  it 
was  said  that  Justice  was  seen  sitting  by  his  side;  and 
when  the  Zenger  jury  cried  “Not  guilty,”  and  Andrew 
Hamilton  left  the  court-room,  like  an  aureole  around 
his  reverend  head  shone  the  freedom  of  the  American 
press.  The  thunder  of  the  cannon,  the  music  of  the 


298  NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 

bells,  the  joyous  feasting,  and  the  fervidly  grateful  ad¬ 
dress  of  the  city,  saluted  not  the  orator  only,  but  Amer¬ 
ican  liberty,  which  had  caught  a  fresh  breath  of  life  from 
his  burning  lips. 

This  is  the  event  in  the  history  of  New  York  which 
this  meeting,  and  every  recurring  meeting  of  this  associ¬ 
ation,  ought  to  commemorate.  In  New  York  the  press 
was  liberated.  In  New  York  the  cardinal  principle 
that  the  truth  is  not  a  libel  was  affirmed.  In  the  Zen- 
ger  trial  in  New  York,  as  Gouverneur  Morris  said,  shone 
the  rosy  dawn  of  that  liberty  which  afterwards  revolu¬ 
tionized  America.  And  what  a  tremendous  power  was 
thus  emancipated !  for  with  a  free  press  popular  gov¬ 
ernment  began.  In  a  broad  sense,  a  free  press  is  the 
greatest  of  all  powers  of  civilization,  because  the  high¬ 
est,  the  most  beautiful,  the  most  beneficent  inspira¬ 
tions  of  human  genius  in  every  branch  of  literature,  are 
made  permanently  and  universally  accessible  only  by 
the  press.  In  vain  for  us  the  prophets  had  spoken,  the 
apostles  taught ;  in  vain  the  poets  had  sung,  the  philos¬ 
ophers  had  explored,  the  inventors  experimented,  and 
the  historians  written ;  for  us  Homer  and  Dante  and 
Shakespeare  had  been  dumb ;  Plutarch  and  Bacon,  Thu¬ 
cydides  and  Tacitus,  Gibbon  and  Grote,  Bryant  and 
Bancroft,  Motley  and  Emerson  and  Longfellow  had 
been  practically  and  popularly  unknown,  except  for 
the  mighty  and  familiar  magic  of  the  press. 

But  ours  is  a  more  limited  signification  of  the  word. 
It  is  not  as  the  universal  disseminator  of  creative  litera¬ 
ture  that  we  celebrate  the  press,  but  as  the  quick  ear 
and  loud  tongue  of  the  world’s  life.  Its  mere  swift- 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS  299 

ness  and  vast  reiteration  are  overwhelming.  Its  ech¬ 
oes  reverberate  around  the  globe.  A  single  copy  of  a 
newspaper  would  be  a  snowflake  melting  as  it  fell,  but 
a  myriad  copies  are  a  mighty  storm  that  transfigures 
the  landscape.  The  press  instantly  fills  the  world  with 
the  name  of  the  man  whom  it  mentions  and  with  the 
slightest  event  that  it  records.  Four  centuries  ago  Co¬ 
lumbus  discovered  America,  and  only  by  the  slow  lapse 
of  time  was  the  world  aware  of  a  new  continent.  To¬ 
day,  before  the  horses  are  dry  from  the  wild  charge  at 
Balaklava  the  heart  of  Christendom  is  thrilling  with  the 
heroic  story  ;  and  the  last  sigh  of  the  murdered  czar  is 
wafted,  almost  before  the  breath  ceases,  to  the  cabin  on 
the  Oregon  frontier. 

But  while  we  all  learn  from  the  newspaper  what  is 
happening  in  every  land,  great  multitudes  learn  from  it 
what  to  think  of  every  event.  The  unfolding  of  their 
paper  is  the  opening  of  their  minds.  The  newspaper  is 
the  daily  critic  and  guide,  the  creator  and  the  voice  of 
public  opinion.  It  can  flash  the  withering  light  of  pub¬ 
licity  on  thieves  and  rascals  of  high  or  low  degree ;  or 
it  can  slip  the  slide  and  hide  crime  in  darkness.  It  can 
be  a  bright  and  blessed  beacon,  warning  the  mariner  of 
reefs  and  shoals,  or  the  false  light  of  the  wrecker  luring 
to  death.  In  our  modern  civilization,  therefore,  the 
newspaper  is  felt  to  be  the  highest  power.  Every  good 
cause  instinctively  seeks  its  aid,  and  instinctively  the 
enemies  of  society  aim  fraudulently  to  control  or  forci¬ 
bly  to  silence  it.  Seventy  years  ago  Napoleon’s  strong¬ 
est  ally  of  his  army  in  holding  Europe  subject  to  his 
will  was  his  command  of  the  press.  The  continental 


300 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


press  was  in  great  part  his  slave.  If  his  mouthpiece, 
the  Monitenr ,  in  Paris,  accused  any  person  in  France  or 
Germany  or  Italy  of  an  offence  towards  him,  no  jour¬ 
nal,  French,  German,  or  Italian,  dared  to  contradict  it. 
When  Tweed  owned  judges  and  senators  and  represent¬ 
atives,  he  knew  that  he  was  still  insecure  because  the 
press  was  free.  His  last  and  great  assault  was  upon 
the  power  of  that  press  which  he  could  not  terrify  or 
cajole  or  buy;  and  by  the  power  of  that  undaunted 
and  unbought  press  the  vulgar  and  insolent,  but  ap¬ 
palling  and  threatening  conspiracy  of  Tweed  was  over¬ 
thrown. 

The  growth  and  development  of  this  power  in  this 
country  and  in  this  State  in  which  its  freedom  was  first 
asserted  are  equally  remarkable.  One  hundred  and 
seventeen  years  ago,  after  some  feeble  and  earlier  at¬ 
tempts,  the  first  American  newspaper  was  published  in 
Boston.  It  was  not  until  1771  that  there  was  a  news¬ 
paper  in  Albany,  and  when  the  Revolution  began  there 
were  but  three  or  four  small,  dingy  weekly  papers  in 
the  State.  It  is  less  than  one  hundred  years,  in  1784, 
that  the  first  daily  newspaper  in  the  country  was  pub¬ 
lished  in  Philadelphia,  the  American  Daily  Advertiser, 
and  on  the  first  of  March  in  the  next  year,  1785,  the 
New  York  Daily  Advertiser  appeared.  Thus  the  daily 
press  of  New  York  is  but  ninety-six  years  old.  In  its 
beginning  it  was  a  thin  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness. 
It  is  now  a  mighty  chorus,  in  which  the  voices  of  a  civ¬ 
ilized  continent  unite. 

There  are  one  hundred  and  fifteen  daily  newspapers 
in  the  State  of  New  York,  and  there  are  nine  hundred 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS  301 

and  sixty-two  in  the  country,  so  that  nearly  one  eighth 
of  the  whole  number  are  in  New  York.  Their  aggregate 
daily  circulation  is  3,581,187,  which  is  larger  than  the 
entire  population  of  the  colonies  when  they  declared 
their  independence ;  and  for  these  daily  papers  the  sum 
of  $26,250,100  is  paid  annually  by  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  which  is  more  than  thirteen  times  the 
annual  revenue  of  the  national  government  in  Washing- 
ton’s  administration.  This  prodigious  growth  is  well 
seen  in  the  case  of  one  newspaper.  Forty-six  years  ago 
the  first  number  of  the  New  York  Herald  appeared  with 
thirty-two  advertisements.  Two  months  ago  the  16,309th 
number  of  the  paper  was  issued  with  more  than  5000 
advertisements,  filling  109  columns  ;  and  the  whole  pa¬ 
per,  with  its  28  pages  and  168  columns,  was  sold  for 
five  cents,  and  would  have  contained  a  large  part  of 
the  works  of  Shakespeare,  Byron,  or  Macaulay.  The 
day  before,  the  Chicago  Times  contained  24  pages  of  8 
columns  each,  192  columns  in  all.  The  prosperity 
of  such  papers  is  like  their  power.  No  business  yields 
a  larger  profit  than  a  successful  newspaper. 

These  are  dazzling  statistics.  They  are  the  amazing 
record  of  the  growth  and  development  of  the  free  press 
in  America,  which  is  nowhere  more  prodigious  than  in 
New  York,  since  the  trial  of  Zenger.  That  trial  estab¬ 
lished  its  freedom,  and  its  freedom  is  now  almost  un¬ 
bounded.  Nothing  is  sacred  or  secure  from  its  eye  and 
its  tongue.  The  newspaper  suddenly  enters  the  schol¬ 
ar’s  library,  the  merchant’s  office,  the  mechanic’s  shop, 
the  clergyman’s  study ;  it  penetrates  the  statesman’s 
cabinet,  the  department  bureau,  the  legislative  commit- 


3°2 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


tee-room,  and  hears  and  tells  all  their  secrets.  Nothing 
escapes.  The  discovery  of  the  astronomer  at  Washing¬ 
ton,  the  strangest  tale  of  the  remotest  traveller,  the  pri¬ 
vate  correspondence  of  the  Star- Route  contractor,  even 
the  dignified  and  dispassionate  councils  of  the  secret 
sessions  of  the  Senate,  are  served  up  at  the  breakfast  of 
a  continent  as  surely  and  quietly  as  the  coffee  and  the 
rolls. 

Not  a  public  event  can  occur,  not  a  new  loan  be  pro¬ 
posed  nor  a  plan  of  refunding ;  not  a  measure  for  sweep¬ 
ing  the  streets  of  the  great  city  can  be  introduced 
into  the  State  legislature,  nor  an  important  nomination 
made  by  the  President,  but  the  newspaper  is  at  a  whis¬ 
pering- gallery,  murmuring  from  sea  to  sea  with  the 
views  of  eminent  men  everywhere  upon  the  subject. 
Even  the  politicians  find  themselves  compelled  to  have 
about  them  that  most  inconvenient  commodity,  an  opin¬ 
ion,  and  give  it  up  at  the  demand  of  the  newspaper. 
An  impulsive  man,  angered  at  the  invasion  of  his  pri¬ 
vacy,  may  kick  the  newspaper  down  stairs;  but  the  nim¬ 
ble  paper  has  its  revenge.  Dickens  has  left  behind  him 
many  a  keen  disciple  upon  the  daily  press ;  and  if  the 
information  sought  is  not  to  be  found,  the  fury  and 
wrath  with  which  it  is  refused,  made  ridiculous  with 
pungent  humor,  are  equally  served  to  a  laughing  conti¬ 
nent  with  the  coffee  and  the  rolls.  The  victim  may  re¬ 
taliate  with  the  horsewhip,  but  the  newspaper,  soundly 
thrashed  in  the  person  of  its  representative,  has  been 
known  instantly  to  issue  an  extra  with  graphic  and  elab¬ 
orate  details  of  the  thrashing. 

In  a  quarrel  with  a  newspaper  the  laugh  is  against 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS  303 

the  private  citizen.  The  press  asserts  for  the  public 
the  right  of  eminent  domain  over  individual  affairs.  If 
your  daughter  is  to  be  married,  the  newspaper  calls  to 
count  the  towels  and  see  the  pattern  of  the  spoons.  If 
the  emperor  of  Crim  Tartary  or  the  king  of  the  Cannibal 
Islands  arrive,  the  newspaper  takes  an  inventory  of  his 
bed-chamber,  and  informs  us  that  he  likes  his  beef  rare. 
It  reports  its  conversations  with  the  statesmen  of  Eu¬ 
rope  at  the  congress  of  Berlin  upon  the  complication  of 
continental  politics,  and  with  the  servants  of  the  states¬ 
men  about  their  masters’  coats  and  boots.  Like  the  air 
and  the  light,  the  press  is  a  chartered  libertine,  and  such 
is  the  universal  and  jealous  public  regard  for  its  liberty, 
because  of  the  instinctive  conviction  that  no  abuse  of  a 
free  press  can  be  so  great  as  the  evil  of  its  suppression, 
that  a  suit  against  a  newspaper  for  defamation  is  almost 
hopeless. 

By  this  conceded  liberty,  this  exhaustless  resource 
and  resistless  enterprise,  at  once  the  daily  mirror  of  the 
world  and  the  reporter  of  private  thought,  the  power  of 
the  press  is  tremendous,  and  the  responsibility  is  com¬ 
mensurate  with  the  power.  When  the  press  is  perfectly 
free,  the  editor  must  himself  be  the  censor,  for  freedom 
alone  does  not  secure  honesty  and  fidelity.  The  ene¬ 
mies  of  the  press,  indeed,  are  not  now  what  they  once 
were,  but  there  are  dangerous  enemies  still,  foes  of 
another  face  and  form.  “  I  believe,”  said  Edmund 
Burke,  “  there  was  no  professed  admirer  of  Henry  VIII. 
among  the  instruments  of  the  last  King  James;  nor  in 
the  court  of  Henry  VIII.  was  there,  I  dare  say,  to  be 
found  a  single  advocate  for  the  favorites  of  Richard  II.” 


3°4 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


The  enemy  of  liberty  is  protean.  The  magician  in  the 
old  fairy  tale  is  now  an  elephant  and  now  a  mouse, 
but  he  is  always  a  magician.  The  devil  in  the  temp¬ 
tation  of  St.  Anthony  was  now  a  dragon,  now  a  toad, 
and  now  a  beautiful  woman,  but  he  was  always  the 
devil.  Royal  governors  and  councils  no  longer  menace 
the  press,  but  to-day  its  freedom  means  its  indepen¬ 
dence,  and  its  independence  is  threatened  by  a  tyranny 
as  crushing  as  that  of  a  royal  governor — the  tyranny 
of  party  spirit. 

I  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  an  editor  may  be  an 
honest  partisan.  I  do  not  doubt  that  I  am  surrounded 
by  hosts  of  such  editors  at  this  moment.  We  all  prob¬ 
ably  belong  to  a  party.  Public  causes  are  to  be  pro¬ 
moted  and  public  progress  is  to  be  achieved  only  by 
concerted  and  organized  action,  that  is,  by  party.  Not 
alone  in  great  emergencies  of  the  State,  but  upon  gen¬ 
eral  principles  and  tendencies  of  government,  we  must 
all  take  sides.  To  hesitate  like  Falkland  between  the 
Roundhead  and  the  Cavalier,  seeing  only  too  clearly 
the  reason  of  both,  and  holding  Liberty  responsible  for 
the  crimes  committed  in  her  name,  is  to  falter  and  fall,  a 
futile  patriot,  a  paralyzed  man.  We  must  all  wear  the 
blue  and  buff  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty  or  the  scarlet  liv¬ 
ery  of  the  king’s  regulars.  Naturally  the  army  in  whose 
ranks  we  march  becomes  identified  with  the  cause.  Its 
colors,  its  music,  its  battle-cries  become  those  of  the 
cause  itself.  Discipline  and  conformity  are  held  to  be 
paramount  necessities,  that  by  obedience  and  co-opera¬ 
tion  the  army  may  have  the  solid  force  of  a  torrent  in¬ 
stead  of  the  scattering  weakness  of  a  shower.  So  a  man 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


3°5 


comes  to  confound  his  party  with  his  country  ;  and  to 
be  wholly  partisan  seems  to  him  to  be  only  patriotic. 
Associated  with  illustrious  achievements  for  his  country 
and  for  mankind,  the  party  name  becomes  as  sweet  to 
his  ear  and  heart  as,  after  famous  victories,  the  name  of 
his  regiment  to  a  soldier.  The  party  tradition  seems  to 
him  an  imperishable  principle.  The  old  Democrat  who 
gloried  in  the  Roman  firmness  of  Andrew  Jackson;  the 
old  Whig  whose  heart  leaped  at  the  bugle-call  of  Henry 
Clay,  will  not  believe  that  his  Democracy  or  his  Whiggery 
is  not  the  purest  and  the  sole  patriotism. 

But  this  is  only  the  romantic  and  poetic  aspect  of 
one  of  the  greatest  perils  of  popular  government.  We 
liken  a  party  to  an  army,  and  the  phrases  of  an  election 
are  military  terms.  But  an  army  is  not  a  cause ;  it  is 
merely  an  agency.  A  party  is  not  a  principle  and  an 
end  ;  it  is  only  a  means.  It  is  the  abject  servility  which 
is  bred  by  the  military  spirit  that  has  made  a  standing 
army  the  standing  threat  of  liberty.  The  army  which 
to-day  humbles  the  foreign  foe  may  to-morrow  oppress 
the  people.  The  army  which  last  year  stood  fast  with 
Cromwell  against  the  crown  may  next  year,  with  wav¬ 
ing  banners  and  pealing  trumpets  and  beating  drums, 
amid  the  resounding  acclamation  of  the  streets  and 
the  joyful  ringing  of  the  bells,  bring  in  the  king. 

Now,  as  the  servility  of  the  military  spirit  is  a  stand- 
ing  peril  of  liberty,  so  the  servility  of  party  spirit  is  the 
standing  menace  of  popular  government.  It  persuades 
us  to  defend  any  policy  however  unwise,  and  to  vote 
for  any  candidate  however  unworthy,  upon  the  plea  of 
maintaining  the  party  supremacy  as  essential  to  the 
I. — 20 


306  NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 

public  welfare.  If  Ananias  be  nominated  upon  a  plat¬ 
form  of  falsehood,  we  must  support  Ananias  to  keep  the 
party  in  power.  If  Jeremy  Diddler  buys  a  regular 
nomination  at  the  convention,  we  must  hurrah  for  Did¬ 
dler  and  the  public  faith,  that  the  party  of  honesty 
may  not  be  defeated.  When  the  Irishman  rode  in  a 
sedan  -  chair  without  a  bottom,  he  remarked  that  ex¬ 
cept  for  the  name  of  the  thing  it  was  very  much  the 
same  as  walking;  and  to  stump  for  Ananias  or  to 
vote  for  Diddler  seems  to  be  very  much  the  same  as 
supporting  the  party  of  falsehood  and  of  dishonesty. 
To  cling  to  the  party  regardless  of  the  principles  of 
the  party,  to  suppose  that  a  regular  nomination  can 
make  political  sharpers  and  pettifoggers  and  traders  fit 
for  public  trust  because  they  do  not  pick  pockets  or 
burn  barns,  is  to  follow  the  banners  and  the  bugles, 
the  glittering  arms  and  the  serried  ranks  of  the  army 
because  it  is  the  army,  and  whether  it  marches  to  de¬ 
fend  liberty  or  to  destroy  it. 

This  is  the  party  spirit  which  is  the  chief  enemy  of 
the  independence  of  the  press.  Governor  Cosby  tried 
to  silence  Zenger  for  saying  what  he  did  not  like. 
Party  spirit — a  more  ruthless  despot  than  Cosby — com¬ 
mands  its  newspaper  to  equivocate,  to  pervert,  to  deny 
the  truth.  Zenger  fought  the  governor  and  conquered. 
How  many  party  newspapers  dare  to  disobey  the  party 
commands?  Yet  as  the  towering  spectre  of  the  Brocken 
is  created  by  the  reflection  of  the  terrified  peasant 
himself,  so  the  power  before  which  the  party  press 
quails  is  bodied  forth  from  its  fears.  It  makes  its  own 
tyrant.  It  brands  the  independence  which  is  the  glory 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS  307 

of  the  citizen  and  the  power  of  the  press  itself,  the 
independence  which  it  might  make  the  purifying  energy 
of  party,  as  treason  to  party.  Such  a  press  distorts 
to  its  own  ends  even  the  news,  so  that  instead  of  be¬ 
lieving  a  story  because  it  is  in  print,  often  the  only 
good  reason  for  not  believing  it  is  that  it  is  told  by 
a  party  newspaper.  I  have  read  in  a  newspaper  within 
a  month  statements  which  professed  to  be  news  tele¬ 
graphed  from  a  distance  which  I  am  sure  were  lies 
written  in  the  office  of  the  paper  to  promote  a  per¬ 
sonal  purpose.  “  I  was  in  Washington  during  the  late 
debates,”  said  a  friend  to  me,  “  and  I  read  a  dozen 
newspaper  reports  every  day,  every  one  of  which  was 
virtually  falsified  by  the  party  feeling  of  the  paper.” 

This  servility  to  party  spirit  is  the  abdication  of  that 
moral  leadership  of  opinion  which  is  the  great  function 
of  the  political  press.  It  is  a  subserviency  which  de¬ 
stroys  the  independence  of  the  paper,  but  it  does  not 
save  the  party.  There  is  not  a  party  in  the  history  of 
this  country  which  has  been  utterly  overthrown,  not 
the  Federal  nor  the  Whig  nor  the  Democratic  party, 
that  might  not  have  survived  long  and  victoriously  if 
its  press  had  been  courageously  independent.  The 
press  submits  to  be  led  by  party  leaders,  while  its 
duty  is  to  lead  leaders.  They  dare  to  disgrace  their 
party,  to  expose  it  to  humiliation  and  defeat,  because 
they  count  upon  the  slavery  of  the  party  press.  The 
leaders  dare  to  praise  rascals  and  to  justify  wrong  be¬ 
cause  they  confidently  expect  their  party  press  to  pro¬ 
long  their  words  in  one  vast  sustained  echo  of  approval 
from  Katahdin  to  Santa  Barbara. 


308  NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 

The  press  is  never  a  more  beneficent  power  than 
when  it  disappoints  this  malign  expectation  and  shows 
the  country  that,  while  loyal  to  a  party  and  its  policy, 
it  is  more  loyal  to  honor  and  patriotism.  It  is  the  pal¬ 
ladium  of  liberty  because  it  is  the  only  power  in  a  free 
country  which  can  alone  withstand  and  overthrow  the 
crafty  conspiracy  of  political  demagogues.  If  it  does 
not  lead  it  is  because  it  chooses  to  follow  ;  it  is  be¬ 
cause  it  does  not  know  that  no  office  is  so  great  as 
that  of  moulding  the  opinion  which  makes  parties  and 
presidents ;  that  no  patronage  is  so  powerful  as  the 
just  fear  of  an  unquailing  criticism  brought  home  to 
every  word  and  every  act  of  every  public  man ;  and 
commending  its  judgment  to  the  intelligence  and  the 
conscience  of  every  citizen.  The  political  press  of  this 
country  does  not  fulfil  its  true  function  until  party 
chiefs  in  caucuses  and  conventions  and  Congress  learn 
that  there  is  a  power  mightier  than  all  of  them  com¬ 
bined,  which  will  not  come  merely  at  their  call,  which 
will  not  be  content  merely  with  the  regular  party  trade¬ 
mark,  but  which,  for  the  sake  of  the  cause  of  its  party 
and  despite  Congress  and  conventions,  will  advocate 
only  worthy  measures  and  support  only  fitting  candi¬ 
dates.  Thus,  and  thus  alone,  can  the  press  of  any  color 
save  its  own  party  from  decay,  by  forcing  leaders  to 
depend  for  support,  not  upon  party  spirit  and  party 
patronage,  but  upon  the  essential  excellence  of  the 
party  policy  and  the  character  of  the  party  candidates. 
When  leaders  know  that  their  own  party  press,  which 
goes  into  every  house  and  reasons  with  every  voter, 
will  ask  first  of  all  whether  the  candidate  nominated 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS  309 

ought  to  have  been  nominated,  and  whether  the  policy 
proposed  is  a  sound  policy,  and  whether  those  who  pro¬ 
pose  to  lead  are  worthy  and  honorable  and  faithful 
leaders,  the  first  care  of  those  leaders  will  be  to  provide 
a  body  of  sound  doctrine,  and  to  present  candidates 
like  the  old  chevalier  of  France,  without  fear  and  with¬ 
out  reproach. 

You  will  not  suppose  that  I  am  ignorant  of  the  ne¬ 
cessity  and  power  of  thorough  organization.  Only  by 
such  means,  as  I  have  said,  can  parties  be  made  effec¬ 
tive.  Organization  is  the  lens  that  draws  the  fiery  rays 
of  conviction  and  enthusiasm  to  a  focus  and  enables 
them  to  burn  a  way  through  all  obstacles.  But  party 
organization  must  be  subordinate,  not  supreme,  while  it 
is  the  tendency  of  party  spirit  to  make  it  paramount. 
The  American  principle  contemplates  an  election  as  an 
appeal  to  the  patriotic  intelligence  of  the  people.  Party 
spirit  regards  it  as  a  mere  contest  for  success,  to  be 
achieved  by  any  means — by  money,  by  forgery,  by  false¬ 
hood,  by  slander  and  venomous  prejudice,  and  by  the 
brute  force  of  a  military  party  discipline.  It  demands 
that  the  devil  shall  be  beaten  with  his  own  weapons, 
and  that  fire  shall  be  fought  with  fire.  From  this  doc¬ 
trine  proceeds  the  degradation  of  our  politics  which 
every  honest  man  deplores.  Under  this  malignant  in¬ 
fluence  political  power  has  passed  from  the  people  to 
bands  of  professional  politicians,  until  reform  has  come 
to  mean  not  so  much  a  change  of  method  as  the  re¬ 
covery  of  their  own  government  by  the  people. 

Gentlemen,  let  us  despise  the  sophistry  which  asserts 
that  lying  can  be  successfully  encountered  only  by 


310  NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 

lying,  and  corruption  only  by  corruption.  Not  such 
was  the  doctrine  of  the  great  leaders  of  English  and 
American  liberty.  John  Pym,  John  Milton,  and  John 
Hampden,  Samuel  Adams  and  George  Washington 
and  statesmen  nearer  our  own  time,  scorned  to  wriggle 
and  cheat  in  public  as  in  private  life.  That  elections 
are  necessarily  mere  contests  of  corruption  is  the  creed 
of  the  pot-house  and  the  politician  of  the  gutter,  who 
echo  Dr.  Johnson’s  Tory  sneer  that  patriotism  is  the 
last  refuge  of  a  scoundrel,  and  that  to  speak  of  honor 
is  only  to  bid  for  a  higher  price  of  infamy.  This  de¬ 
grading  theory  has  been  the  reproach  of  the  politics  of 
New  York  from  the  time  of  Aaron  Burr  and  the  coun¬ 
cil  of  appointment  to  our  own.  It  is  this  spirit  which 
long  ago  caused  them  to  be  described  as  ferocious,  and 
which  persuaded  even  so  great  a  man  as  Alexander 
Hamilton  to  urge  Governor  John  Jay  to  defeat,  by  a 
trick  which  was  technically  lawful,  the  declared  will  of 
the  people  at  the  polls.  John  Jay  wrote  upon  Hamil¬ 
ton’s  letter,  “  Proposing  a  measure  for  party  purposes 
which  I  think  it  would  not  become  me  to  adopt.” 

If  the  name  of  the  royal  Governor  Cosby  be  remem¬ 
bered  for  his  abortive  attempt  to  destroy  the  freedom 
of  the  New  York  press,  shall  not  that  of  Governor  John 
Jay  be  reverently  cherished  for  furnishing  to  that  press 
the  principle  of  its  independent  power?  It  is  not  by 
prostituting  itself  blindly  to  a  party  nor  by  exasper¬ 
ating  party  spirit,  not  by  distorting  the  news  and  per¬ 
verting  the  truth  for  a  party  purpose,  that  it  can  prop¬ 
erly  exercise  its  great  function  in  the  State ;  but  by 
making  itself  the  voice  of  the  patriotic  intelligence  and 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS  311 

public  spirit  which  even  while  accepting  a  party  name 
rejects  a  party  collar,  which  no  bluster  can  dismay  nor 
ridicule  dishearten  nor  flattery  cajole,  the  independent 
citizenship  which  is  the  great  conservative  element  in 
popular  government,  the  arbiter  of  American  destinies. 
This  is  the  independence  of  the  press.  It  is  not  non- 
partisanship  nor  impotent  neutrality.  It  is  not  the 
free  lance  of  an  Italian  bravo  or  soldier  of  fortune,  the 
sword  of  a  Sforza  or  of  a  Gonzaga  at  the  disposal  of 
the  master  who  pays  the  best.  It  is  not  the  unprinci¬ 
pled  indifference  which  cries  to-day  “  Good  Lord  ”  and 
to-morrow  “  Good  Devil,”  as  the  Lord  or  the  devil  seems 
to  be  prevailing.  Nor  is  it  a  daily  guess  how  the  wind 
is  going  to  blow,  and  a  dexterous  conformity  to  what 
it  believes  to  be  public  opinion.  No  paper  and  no 
man  who  fears  to  be  in  the  minority  has  the  power 
to  create  a  majority.  It  is  the  unquailing  advocacy 
of  its  own  principles  when  it  stands  alone,  and  honor¬ 
able  support  of  a  party  when  a  party  proclaims  them  ; 
it  is  scorn  of  falsehood  and  baseness  and  bribery  in 
sustaining  them ;  it  is  manly  justice  to  opponents,  and 
unsparing  exposure  of  offenders  and  offences  which, 
disgracing  its  party,  tend  to  weaken  and  destroy  it ; 
it  is  austere  allegiance  to  high  ideals  of  public  virtue 
and  perfect  reliance  upon  the  ultimate  justice  of  the 
people — it  is  all  this  which  makes  an  independent  press 
the  greatest  power  in  Christendom. 

Gentlemen,  if  I  have  spoken  but  simple  and  obvious 
truths,  if  your  hearts  respond  to  mine  and  your  judg¬ 
ment  ratifies  my  words,  if  you  agree  with  me  that  the 
independence  of  the  press  is  its  true  power,  and  its 


3 12 


NEW  YORK  AND  ITS  PRESS 


proper  function  is  to  lead  parties  and  leaders,  not  to  fol¬ 
low  them, — then,  as  we  stand  in  this  midsummer  glory 
of  central  New  York,  as  we  recall  the  heroes  and  tell 
the  inspiring  story  of  our  State,  let  us  renew  our  loyalty 
to  the  great  advocate  who  gave  our  press  its  freedom, 
and  as  children  of  the  Sons  of  Liberty  who  overthrew 
the  statue  of  the  king,  let  us  resolve  that  the  sovereign 
power  which  shall  carry  New  York  still  higher  and 
farther  upon  her  glorious  way  shall  be  the  imperial 
independence  of  the  press  of  the  Empire  State. 


XIII 

THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  ALUMNI  OF  BROWN 
UNIVERSITY,  AT  PROVIDENCE,  R.  I.,  JUNE  20,  1 882 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


There  is  a  modern  English  picture  which  the  genius 
of  Hawthorne  might  have  inspired.  The  painter  calls 
it,  “  How  they  met  themselves.”  A  man  and  a  wom¬ 
an,  haggard  and  weary,  wandering  lost  in  a  sombre 
wood,  suddenly  meet  the  shadowy  figures  of  a  youth 
and  a  maid.  Some  mysterious  fascination  fixes  the  gaze 
and  stills  the  hearts  of  the  wanderers,  and  their  amaze¬ 
ment  deepens  into  awe  as  they  gradually  recognize 
themselves  as  once  they  were ;  the  soft  bloom  of  youth 
upon  their  rounded  cheeks,  the  dewy  light  of  hope  in 
their  trusting  eyes,  exulting  confidence  in  their  spring¬ 
ing  step,  themselves  blithe  and  radiant  with  the  glory 
of  the  dawn.  To-day  and  here  we  meet  ourselves.  Not 
to  these  familiar  scenes  alone  —  yonder  college -green 
with  its  reverend  traditions  ;  the  halcyon  cove  of  the 
Seekonk,  upon  which  the  memory  of  Roger  Williams 
broods  like  a  bird  of  calm ;  the  historic  bay  beating 
forever  with  the  muffled  oars  of  Barton  and  of  Abra¬ 
ham  Whipple  ;  here,  the  humming  city  of  the  living  ; 
there,  the  peaceful  city  of  the  dead ; — not  to  these  only 
or  chiefly  do  we  return,  but  to  ourselves  as  we  once 
were.  It  is  not  the  smiling  freshmen  of  the  year,  it  is 


316  the  leadership  of  educated  men 

your  own  beardless  and  unwrinkled  faces,  that  are  looking 
from  the  windows  of  University  Hall  and  of  Hope  Col¬ 
lege.  Under  the  trees  upon  the  hill  it  is  yourselves 
whom  you  see  walking,  full  of  hopes  and  dreams,  glow¬ 
ing  with  conscious  power,  and  “  nourishing  a  youth 
sublime” ;  and  in  this  familiar  temple,  which  surely  has 
never  echoed  with  eloquence  so  fervid  and  inspiring  as 
that  of  your  commencement  orations,  it  is  not  yonder 
youths  in  the  galleries,  who,  as  they  fondly  believe,  are 
whispering  to  yonder  maids ;  it  is  your  younger  selves 
who  in  the  days  that  are  no  more  are  murmuring 
to  the  fairest  mothers  and  grandmothers  of  those 
maids. 

Happy  the  worn  and  weary  man  and  woman  in  the 
picture  could  they  have  felt  their  older  eyes  still  glis¬ 
tening  with  that  earlier  light,  and  their  hearts  yet  beat¬ 
ing  with  undiminished  sympathy  and  aspiration.  Hap¬ 
py  we,  brethren,  whatever  may  have  been  achieved, 
whatever  left  undone,  if,  returning  to  the  home  of  our 
earlier  years,  we  bring  with  us  the  illimitable  hope, 
the  unchilled  resolution,  the  inextinguishable  faith  of 
youth. 

It  was  as  scholars  that  you  were  here ;  it  is  to  the 
feeling  and  life  of  scholars  that  you  return.  I  mean 
the  scholar  not  as  a  specialist  or  deeply  proficient  stu¬ 
dent,  not  like  Darwin,  a  conqueror  greater  than  Alex¬ 
ander,  who  extended  the  empire  of  human  knowledge ; 
nor  like  Emerson,  whose  serene  wisdom,  a  planet  in  the 
cloudless  heaven,  lighted  the  path  of  his  age  to  larger 
spiritual  liberty ;  nor  like  Longfellow,  sweet  singer  of 
our  national  spring-time,  whose  scholarship  decorated 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN  317 

his  pure  and  limpid  song  as  flowers  are  mirrored  in  a 
placid  stream  —  not  as  scholars  like  these,  but  as  edu¬ 
cated  men,  to  whom  the  dignity  and  honor  and  re¬ 
nown  of  the  educated  class  are  precious,  however 
remote  from  study  your  lives  may  have  been,  you  re¬ 
turn  to  the  annual  festival  of  letters.  “  Neither  years 
nor  books,”  says  Emerson,  speaking  of  his  own  college 
days,  “  have  yet  availed  to  extirpate  a  prejudice  then 
rooted  in  me  that  a  scholar  is  the  favorite  of  heaven 
and  earth,  the  excellency  of  his  country,  the  happiest 
of  men.” 

But  every  educated  man  is  aware  of  a  profound  pop¬ 
ular  distrust  of  the  courage  and  sagacity  of  the  educated 
class.  Franklin  and  Lincoln  are  good  enough  for  us, 
exclaims  this  jealous  scepticism  ;  as  if  Franklin  and  Lin¬ 
coln  did  not  laboriously  repair  by  vigorous  study  the 
want  of  early  opportunity.  The  scholar  appealing  to 
experience  is  proudly  told  to  close  his  books,  for  what 
has  America  to  do  with  experience?  as  if  books  were 
not  the  ever- burning  lamps  of  accumulated  wisdom. 
When  Voltaire  was  insulted  by  the  London  mob,  he 
turned  at  his  door  and  complimented  them  upon  the 
nobleness  of  their  national  character,  their  glorious  con¬ 
stitution,  and  their  love  of  liberty.  The  London  mob 
did  not  feel  the  sarcasm.  But  when  I  hear  that  Amer¬ 
ica  may  scorn  experience  because  she  is  a  law  to  herself, 
I  remember  that  a  few  years  ago  a  foreign  observer 
came  to  the  city  of  Washington,  and  said :  “  I  did  not 
fully  comprehend  your  greatness  until  I  saw  your  Con¬ 
gress.  Then  I  felt  that  if  you  could  stand  that  you 
could  stand  anything,  and  I  understood  the  saying 


318  the  leadership  of  educated  men 

that  God  takes  care  of  children,  drunken  men,  and  the 
United  States.” 

The  scholar  is  denounced  as  a  coward.  Humanity- 
falls  among  thieves,  we  are  told,  and  the  college  Levite, 
the  educated  Pharisee,  pass  by  on  the  other  side.  Sla¬ 
very  undermines  the  Republic,  but  the  clergy  in  Amer¬ 
ica  are  the  educated  class,  and  the  Church  makes  itself 
the  bulwark  of  slavery.  Strong  drink  slays  its  tens  of 
thousands,  but  the  educated  class  leaves  the  gospel  of 
temperance  to  be  preached  by  the  ignorant  and  the  en¬ 
thusiast,  as  the  English  Establishment  left  the  preach¬ 
ing  of  regeneration  to  Methodist  itinerants  in  fields  and 
barns.  Vast  questions  cast  their  shadows  upon  the  fut¬ 
ure  :  the  just  relations  of  capital  and  labor  ;  the  distribu¬ 
tion  of  land ;  the  towering  power  of  corporate  wealth ; 
reform  in  administrative  methods ;  but  the  educated 
class,  says  the  critic,  instead  of  advancing  to  deal  with 
them  promptly,  wisely,  and  courageously,  and  settling 
them  as  morning  dissipates  the  night,  without  a  shock, 
leaves  them  to  be  kindled  to  fury  by  demagogues,  lifts 
a  panic  cry  of  communism,  and  sinks  paralyzed  with  ter¬ 
ror.  It  is  the  old  accusation.  Erasmus  was  the  great 
pioneer  of  modern  scholarship.  But  in  the  fierce  con¬ 
test  of  the  Reformation  Luther  denounced  him  as  a 
time-server  and  a  coward.  With  the  same  feeling,  The¬ 
odore  Parker,  the  spiritual  child  of  Luther,  asked  of 
Goethe,  “Tell  me,  what  did  he  ever  do  for  the  cause 
of  man?”  and  when  nothing  remained  for  his  coun¬ 
try  but  the  dread  alternative  of  slavery  or  civil  war, 
Parker  exclaimed  sadly  of  the  class  to  which  he 
belonged,  “  If  our  educated  men  had  done  their  duty 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


31 9 


we  should  not  now  be  in  the  ghastly  condition  we  be¬ 
wail.” 

Gentlemen,  we  belong  to  the  accused  class.  Its  honor 
and  dignity  are  very  precious  to  us.  Is  this  humil¬ 
iating  arraignment  true  ?  Does  the  educated  class  of 
America  especially  deserve  this  condemnation  of  politi¬ 
cal  recreancy  and  moral  cowardice?  Faithless  scholars, 
laggard  colleges,  bigoted  pulpits,  there  may  be ;  signal 
instances  you  may  find  of  feebleness  and  pusillanimity. 
This  has  been  always  true.  Leigh  Hunt  said,  “  I  thought 
that  my  Horace  and  Demosthenes  gave  me  a  right  to 
sit  at  table  with  any  man,  and  I  think  so  still.”  But 
when  De  Quincey  met  Dr.  Parr,  who  knew  Horace  and 
Demosthenes  better  than  any  man  of  his  time,  he  de¬ 
scribed  him  as  a  lisping  scandal-monger,  retailing  gossip 
fit  only  for  washerwomen  to  hear.  During  the  earth¬ 
quake  of  the  great  civil  war  in  England,  Sir  Thomas 
Browne  sat  tranquilly  in  scholarly  seclusion,  polishing 
the  conceits  of  the  “Urn  Burial,”  and  modulating  the 
long-drawn  music  of  the  “  Religio  Medici.”  Looking 
at  Browne  and  Parr,  at  Erasmus  and  Goethe,  is  it  strange 
that  scholars  are  impatiently  derided  as  useless  pedants 
or  literary  voluptuaries,  and  that  the  whole  educated 
class  is  denounced  as  feeble  and  impracticable? 

But  remember  what  Coleridge  said  to  Washington 
Alston,  “  Never  judge  a  work  of  art  by  its  defects.” 
The  proper  comment  to  make  upon  recreant  scholars 
is  that  of  Brummell’s  valet  upon  the  tumbled  cambric 
in  his  hands,  “  These  are  our  failures.”  Luther,  impa¬ 
tient  of  the  milder  spirit  of  Erasmus  and  Colet  and  Sir 
Thomas  More,  might  well  have  called  them  our  failures, 


320  THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

because  he  was  of  their  class,  and  while  they  counselled 
moderation,  his  fiery  and  impetuous  soul  sought  to  seize 
triple-crowned  error  and  drag  it  from  its  throne.  But 
Luther  was  no  less  a  scholar,  and  stands  equally  with 
them  for  the  scholarly  class  and  the  heroism  of  educated 
men.  Even  Erasmus  said  of  him  with  friendly  wit,  “  He 
has  hit  the  pope  on  the  crown  and  the  monks  on  the 
belly.”  If  the  cowled  scholars  of  the  Church  rejected 
him,  and  universities  under  their  control  renounced  and 
condemned  him,  yet  Luther  is  justified  in  saying,  as  he 
sweeps  his  hand  across  them  and  speaks  for  himself  and 
for  the  scholars  who  stood  with  him,  “These  are  not  our 
representatives  ;  these  are  our  failures.” 

So  on  our  side  of  the  sea  the  educated  body  of  Puri¬ 
tan  Massachusetts  Bay,  the  clergy  and  the  magistrates, 
drove  Roger  Williams  from  their  borders — Roger  Will¬ 
iams,  also  a  scholar  and  a  clergyman,  and,  with  John 
Milton,  the  bright  consummate  flower  of  Puritanism. 
But  shall  not  he  stand  for  the  scholar  rather  than  Cot¬ 
ton  Mather,  torturing  terrified  old  women  to  death  as 
witches!  I  appeal  from  Philip  drunk  to  Philip  sober — 
from  the  scholarship  that  silenced  Mrs.  Hutchinson  and 
hung  Mary  Dyer  and  pressed  Giles  Corey  to  death,  to 
the  scholarship  that  argued  with  George  Fox  and  found¬ 
ed  a  political  commonwealth  upon  soul-liberty.  A  year 
ago  I  sat  with  my  brethren  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  at 
Cambridge,  and  seemed  to  catch  echoes  of  Edmund 
Burke’s  resounding  impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings 
in  the  sparkling  denunciation  of  the  timidity  of  Amer¬ 
ican  scholarship.  Under  the  spell  of  Burke’s  burning 
words  Hastings  half  believed  himself  to  be  the  villain 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


321 


he  heard  described.  But  the  scholarly  audience  of  the 
scholarly  orator*  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  with  an  ex¬ 
quisite  sense  of  relief,  felt  every  count  of  his  stinging 
indictment  recoil  upon  himself.  He  was  the  glowing 
refutation  of  his  own  argument.  Gentleman,  scholar, 
orator,  his  is  the  courage  that  never  quailed ;  his  the 
white  plume  of  Navarre  that  flashed  meteor- like  in 
the  front  of  battle ;  his  the  Amphion  music  of  an 
eloquence  that  levelled  the  more  than  Theban  walls  of 
American  slavery.  At  once  judge,  culprit,  and  accuser, 
in  the  noble  record  of  his  own  life  he  and  his  class  are 
triumphantly  acquitted. 

Must  we  count  such  illustrations  as  exceptions?  But 
how  can  we  do  so  when  we  see  that  the  Reformation, 
the  mental  and  moral  new  birth  of  Christendom,  was 

the  work  of  the  educated  class?  .  Follow  the  movement 

* 

of  liberty  in  detail,  and  still  the  story  is  the  same.  The 
great  political  contest  in  England,  inspired  by  the  Ref¬ 
ormation,  was  directed  by  University  men.  John  Pym 
in  the  Commons,  John  Hampden  in  the  field,  John 
Milton  in  the  Cabinet — three  Johns,  and  all  of  them 
well-beloved  disciples  of  liberty — with  the  grim  Oliver 
himself,  purging  England  of  royal  despotism,  and  aveng¬ 
ing  the  slaughtered  saints  on  Alpine  mountains  cold, 
were  all  of  them  children  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 
In  the  next  century,  like  a  dawn  lurid  but  bright,  the 
French  Revolution  broke  upon  the  world.  But  the  only 
hope  of  a  wise  direction  of  the  elemental  forces  that 
upheaved  France  vanished  when  the  educated  leader- 


I. — 21 


*  Wendell  Phillips. 


322 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


ship  lost  control,  and  Marat  became  the  genius  and 
the  type  of  the  Revolution.  Ireland  also  bears  witness. 
As  its  apostle  and  tutelary  saint  was  a  scholar,  so 
its  long  despair  of  justice  has  found  its  voice  and 
its  hand  among  educated  Irishmen.  Swift  and  Moly- 
neux  and  Flood  and  Grattan  and  O’Connell,  Duffy, 
and  the  young  enthusiasts  around  Thomas  Davis 
who  sang  of  an  Erin  that  never  was  and  dreamed  of 
an  Ireland  that  cannot  be,  were  men  of  the  colleges 
and  the  schools,  whose  long  persistence  of  tongue 
and  pen  fostered  the  life  of  their  country  and  gained 
for  her  all  that  she  has  won.  For  modern  Italy,  let 
Silvio  Pellico  and  Foresti  and  Maroncelli  answer.  It 
was  Italian  education  which  Austria  sought  to  smother, 
and  it  was  not  less  Cavour  than  Garibaldi  who  gave 
constitutional  liberty  to  Italy.  When  Germany  sank 
at  Jena  under  the  heel  of  Napoleon,  and  Stein — whom 
Napoleon  hated,  but  could  not  appall — asked  if  national 
life  survived,  the  answer  rang  from  the  universities,  and 
from  them  modern  Germany  came  forth.  With  pro¬ 
phetic  impulse  Theodore  Koerner  called  his  poems  “  The 
Lyre  and  the  Sword,”  for,  like  the  love  which  changed 
the  sea-nymph  into  the  harp,  the  fervent  patriotism  of 
the  educated  youth  of  Germany  turned  the  poet’s  lyre 
into  the  soldier’s  victorious  sword.  In  the  splendor  of 
our  American  day  let  us  remember  and  honor  our  breth¬ 
ren,  first  in  every  council,  dead  upon  every  field  of  free¬ 
dom  from  the  Volga  to  the  Rhine,  from  John  o’Groats 
to  the  Adriatic,  who  have  steadily  drawn  Europe  from 
out  the  night  of  despotism,  and  have  vindicated  for  the 
educated  class  the  leadership  of  modern  civilization. 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


323 


Here  in  America,  where  as  yet  there  are  no  ruins  save 
those  of  ancient  wrongs,  undoubtedly  New  England 
has  inspired  and  moulded  our  national  life.  But  if  New 
England  has  led  the  Union,  what  has  led  New  England  ? 
Her  scholarly  class.  Her  educated  men.  And  our  Rog¬ 
er  Williams  gave  the  key-note.  “  He  has  broached  and 
divulged  new  and  dangerous  opinions  against  the  au¬ 
thority  of  magistrates,”  said  Massachusetts  as  she  ban¬ 
ished  him.  A  century  later  his  dangerous  opinions  had 
captured  Massachusetts.  Young  Sam  Adams,  taking 
his  Master’s  degree  at  Cambridge,  argued  that  it  was 
lawful  to  resist  the  supreme  magistrate  if  the  State 
could  not  otherwise  be  preserved.  He  was  a  college 
stripling.  But  seven  years  afterwards,  in  1750,  the 
chief  pulpit  orator  in  New  England,  Jonathan  Mayhew, 
preached  in  Boston  the  famous  sermon  which  Thornton 
called  the  morning  gun  of  the  Revolution,  applying  to 
the  political  situation  the  principles  of  Roger  Williams. 
The  New  England  pulpit  echoed  and  re-echoed  that 
morning  gun,  arousing  the  country,  and  twenty- five 
years  later  its  warning  broke  into  the  rattle  of  musketry 
at  Lexington  and  Concord  and  the  glorious  thunder  of 
Bunker  Hill. 

It  was  a  son  of  Harvard,  James  Otis,  who  proposed 
the  assembly  of  an  American  congress  without  asking 
the  king’s  leave.  It  was  a  son  of  Yale,  John  Morin 
Scott,  who  declared  that  if  taxation  without  represen¬ 
tation  were  to  be  enforced,  the  colonies  ought  to  sep¬ 
arate  from  England.  It  was  a  group  of  New  York 
scholars,  John  Jay  and  Scott  and  the  Livingstones, 
which  spoke  for  the  colony  in  response  to  the  Boston 


32  4 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


Port  Bill  and  proposed  the  Continental  Congress.  It 
was  a  New  England  scholar  in  that  Congress,  whom 
Rufus  Choate  declared  to  be  the  distinctive  and  com¬ 
prehensive  orator  of  the  Revolution,  John  Adams,  who, 
urging  every  argument,  touching  every  stop  of  passion, 
pride,  tenderness,  interest,  conscience,  and  lofty  indig¬ 
nation,  swept  up  his  country  as  into  a  chariot  of  fire 
and  soared  to  independence. 

I  do  not  forget  that  Virginian  tongue  of  flame,  Pat¬ 
rick  Henry,  nor  that  patriotism  of  the  field  and  fireside 
which  recruited  the  Sons  of  Liberty.  The  inspiring 
statue  of  the  Minute  Man  at  Concord — and  a  nobler 
memorial  figure  does  not  stand  upon  our  soil — com¬ 
memorates  the  spirit  that  left  the  plough  standing  in 
the  furrow,  that  drew  Nathaniel  Greene  from  his  anvil 
and  Esek  Hopkins  from  his  farm ;  the  spirit  that  long 
before  had  sent  the  poor  parishioners  of  Scrooby  to 
Holland,  and  filled  the  victorious  ranks  of  the  Common¬ 
wealth  at  Naseby  and  at  Marston  Moor.  But  in  Amer¬ 
ica  as  in  England  they  were  educated  men  who  in  the 
pulpit,  on  the  platform,  and  through  the  press,  con¬ 
ducted  the  mighty  preliminary  argument  of  the  Revo¬ 
lution,  defended  the  ancient  traditions  of  English  liberty 
against  reactionary  England,  aroused  the  colonists  to 
maintain  the  cause  of  human  nature,  and  led  them  from 
the  Gaspee  and  Bunker  Hill  across  the  plains  of  Sara¬ 
toga,  the  snows  of  Valley  Forge,  the  sands  of  Mon¬ 
mouth,  the  hills  of  Carolina,  until  at  Yorktown  once 
more  the  king  surrendered  to  the  people,  and  educated 
America  had  saved  constitutional  liberty. 

In  the  next  brief  and  critical  period,  when  through 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN  325 

the  travail  of  a  half-anarchical  confederation  the  inde¬ 
pendent  States,  always  instinctively  tending  to  union, 
rose  into  a  rural  constitutional  republic,  the  good  genius 
of  America  was  still  the  educated  mind  of  the  country. 
Of  the  fifty-five  members  of  the  Convention,  which  Ban¬ 
croft,  changing  the  poet’s  line,  calls  “  the  goodliest  fel¬ 
lowship  of  law-givers  whereof  this  world  holds  record,” 
thirty-three  were  college  graduates,  and  the  eight  leaders 
of  the  great  debate  were  all  college  men.  The  Convention 
adjourned,  and  while  from  out  the  strong  hand  of  George 
Clinton,  Hamilton,  the  son  of  Columbia,  drew  New  York 
into  the  Union,  that  placid  son  of  Princeton,  James 
Madison,  withstanding  the  fiery  energy  of  Patrick  Hen¬ 
ry,  placed  Virginia  by  her  side.  Then  Columbia  and 
Princeton  uniting  in  Hamilton,  Jay,  and  Madison,  inter¬ 
preted  the  Constitution  in  that  greatest  of  commenta¬ 
ries,  which,  as  the  dome  crowns  the  Capitol,  completed 
the  majestic  argument  which  long  before  the  sons  of 
Harvard  had  begun.  Take  away  the  scholarly  class 
from  the  discussion  that  opened  the  Revolution,  from 
the  deliberations  that  guided  it,  from  the  debates  of 
the  Constitutional  Convention  that  ended  it,  would 
the  advance  of  America  have  been  more  triumphant? 
Would  the  guarantees  of  individual  liberty,  of  national 
union,  of  a  common  prosperity,  have  been  more  surely 
established  ?  The  critics  laughed  at  the  pictured  grapes 
as  unnatural.  But  the  painter  was  satisfied  when  the 
birds  came  and  pecked  at  them.  Daily  the  educated 
class  is  denounced  as  impracticable  and  visionary.  But 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  the  work  of 
American  scholars. 


326  THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

Doubtless  the  leaders  expressed  a  sentiment  which 
was  shared  by  the  men  and  women  around  them.  But 
it  was  they  who  had  formed  and  fostered  that  senti¬ 
ment.  They  were  not  the  puppets  of  the  crowd,  light 
weathercocks  which  merely  showed  the  shifting  gusts 
of  popular  feeling.  They  did  not  follow  what  they 
could  not  resist,  and  make  their  voices  the  tardy  echo 
of  a  thought  they  did  not  share.  They  were  not  dainty 
and  feeble  hermits  because  they  were  educated  men. 
They  were  equal  citizens  with  the  rest ;  men  of  strong 
convictions  and  persuasive  speech,  who  showed  their 
brethren  what  they  ought  to  think  and  do.  That  is  the 
secret  of  leadership.  It  is  not  servility  to  the  mob,  it 
is  not  giving  vehement  voice  to  popular  frenzy,  that 
makes  a  leader.  That  makes  a  demagogue ;  Cleon,  not 
Pericles ;  Catiline,  not  Cicero.  Leadership  is  the  power 
of  kindling  a  sympathy  and  trust  which  will  eagerly 
follow.  It  is  the  genius  that  moulds  the  lips  of  the 
stony  Memnon  to  such  sensitive  life  that  the  first  sun¬ 
beam  of  opportunity  strikes  them  into  music.  In  a 
great  crisis  it  is  thinking  so  as  to  make  others  think,  feel¬ 
ing  so  as  to  make  others  feel,  which  tips  the  orator’s 
tongue  with  fire  that  lights  as  well  as  burns.  So  when 
Lord  Chatham  stood  at  the  head  of  England  organizing 
her  victories  by  land  and  sea,  and  told  in  Parliament  their 
splendid  story,  his  glowing  form  was  Britain’s  self,  and  the 
roar  of  British  guns  and  the  proud  acclamation  of  British 
hearts  all  around  the  globe  flashed  and  thundered  in  his 
eloquence.  “  This  is  a  glorious  morning,”  said  the  scholar 
Samuel  Adams,  with  a  price  set  on  his  head,  as  he  heard 
the  guns  at  Lexington.  “  Decus  et  decorum  est,”  said 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


327 


the  young  scholar  Joseph  Warren  gayly,  as  he  passed 
to  his  death  on  Bunker  Hill.  They  spoke  for  the  lofty 
enthusiasm  of  patriotism  which  they  had  kindled.  It 
was  not  a  mob,  an  ignorant  multitude  swayed  by  a  mys¬ 
terious  impulse;  it  was  a  body  of  educated  men,  wise 
and  heroic  because  they  were  educated,  who  lifted  this 
country  to  independence  and  laid  deep  and  strong  the 
foundations  of  the  Republic. 

Is  this  less  true  of  the  maintenance  and  development 
of  the  government  ?  Thirty  years  ago,  walking  on  the 
Cliff  at  Newport  with  Mr.  Bancroft,  I  asked  him  to  what 
point  he  proposed  to  continue  his  history.  He  an¬ 
swered  :  “  If  I  were  an  artist  painting  a  picture  of  this 
ocean,  my  work  would  stop  at  the  horizon.  I  can  see 
no  further.  My  history  will  end  with  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution.  All  beyond  that  is  experiment.”  This 
was  long  ago.  But  the  Republic  is  an  experiment  no 
longer.  It  has  been  strained  to  the  utmost  along  the 
very  vital  fibre  of  its  frame,  and  it  has  emerged  from 
the  ordeal  recreated.  Happy  the  venerable  historian, 
who  has  survived  both  to  witness  the  triumph  of  the 
experiment,  and  to  complete  his  stately  story  to  the 
very  point  which  he  contemplated  thirty  years  ago  ! 
He  has  reached  what  was  then  the  horizon,  and  may  a 
gracious  Providence  permit  him  yet  to  depict  the  new 
and  further  and  radiant  prospect  which  he  and  all  his 
countrymen  behold  ! 

In  achieving  this  great  result  has  educated  America 
been  sluggish  or  sceptical  or  cowardly  ?  The  Constitu¬ 
tion  was  but  ten  years  old  when  the  author  of  the  Dec¬ 
laration  of  Independence,  speaking  with  great  authority 


328  THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

and  for  a  great  party,  announced  that  the  Constitution 
was  a  compact  of  which  every  State  must  judge  for  it¬ 
self  both  the  fact  of  violation  and  the  mode  of  redress. 
Jefferson  sowed  dragon’s  teeth  in  the  fresh  soil  of  the 
young  Union.  He  died,  but  the  armed  men  appeared. 
The  whole  course  of  our  politics  for  nearly  a  century 
was  essentially  revolutionary.  Beneath  all  specific  meas¬ 
ures  and  party  policies  lay  the  supreme  question  of  the 
nature  of  the  government  which  Jefferson  had  raised. 
Is  the  Union  a  league  or  a  nation?  Are  we  built  upon 
the  solid  earth  or  unstably  encamped,  like  Sindbad’s  com¬ 
pany,  upon  the  back  of  a  sea-monster  which  may  dive 
at  any  moment?  Until  this  doubt  was  settled  there 
could  be  no  peace.  Yet  the  question  lay  in  our  politics 
only  like  the  far  black  cloud  along  the  horizon,  flashing 
and  muttering  scarce  heard  thunders  until  the  slavery 
agitation  began.  That  was  a  debate  which  devoured 
every  other,  until  the  slave-power,  foiled  in  the  hope  of 
continental  empire,  pleaded  Jefferson’s  theory  of  the 
Constitution  as  an  argument  for  national  dissolution. 
This  was  the  third  great  crisis  of  the  country,  and  in 
the  tremendous  contention,  as  in  the  war  that  followed, 
was  the  American  scholar  recreant  and  dumb  ? 

I  do  not  ask,  for  it  is  not  necessary,  whether  in  the 
ranks  of  the  powerful  host  that  resisted  agitation  there 
were  not  scholars  and  educated  men.  I  do  not  ask 
whether  the  educated  or  any  other  class  alone  main¬ 
tained  the  fight,  nor  whether  there  were  not  unquailing 
leaders  who  were  not  educated  men,  nor  whether  all 
were  first,  or  all  approved  the  same  methods,  or  all  were 
equally  wise  or  equally  zealous.  Of  course,  I  make  no 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


329 


exclusive  claim.  I  do  not  now  speak  of  men  like  Gar¬ 
rison,  whose  name  is  that  of  a  great  patriot  and  a  great 
human  benefactor,  and  whose  sturdy  leadership  was  that 
of  an  old  Hebrew  prophet.  But  was  the  great  battle 
fought  and  won  while  we  and  our  guild  stood  passive 
and  hostile  by  ? 

The  slavery  agitation  began  with  the  moral  appeal, 
and  as  in  the  dawn  of  the  Revolution  educated  America 
spoke  in  the  bugle  note  of  James  Otis,  so  in  the  moral 
onset  of  the  antislavery  agitation  rings  out  the  clear 
voice  of  a  son  of  Otis’s  college,  himself  the  Otis  of  the 
later  contest,  Wendell  Phillips.  By  his  side,  in  the 
stormy  dawn  of  the  movement,  stands  a  grandson  of 
Quincy  of  the  Revolution,  and  among  the  earliest  anti¬ 
slavery  leaders  is  more  than  a  proportionate  part  of 
liberally  educated  men.  In  Congress  the  commanding 
voice  for  freedom  was  that  of  the  most  learned,  experi¬ 
enced,  and  courageous  of  American  statesmen,  the  voice 
of  a  scholar  and  an  old  college  professor,  John  Quincy 
Adams.  Whittier’s  burning  words  scattered  the  sacred 
fire,  Longfellow  and  Lowell  mingled  their  songs  with 
his,  and  Emerson  gave  to  the  cause  the  loftiest  scholarly 
heart  in  the  Union.  And  while  Parker’s  and  Beech¬ 
er’s  pulpits  echoed  Jonathan  Mayhew’s  morning  gun 
and  fired  words  like  cannon-balls,  in  the  highest  pulpit 
of  America,  foremost  among  the  champions  of  liberty, 
stood  the  slight  and  radiant  figure  of  the  scholarly  son 
of  Rhode  Island,  upon  whom  more  than  upon  any  of 
her  children  the  mantle  of  Roger  Williams  had  worthily 
fallen,  William  Ellery  Channing. 

When  the  national  debate  was  angriest,  it  was  the 


33° 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


scholar  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  who  held 
highest  in  his  undaunted  hands  the  flag  of  humanity 
and  his  country.  While  others  bowed  and  bent  and 
broke  around  him,  the  form  of  Charles  Sumner  towered 
erect.  Commerce  and  trade,  the  mob  of  the  clubs  and 
of  the  street,  hissed  and  sneered  at  him  as  a  pedantic 
dreamer  and  fanatic.  No  kind  of  insult  and  defiance 
was  spared.  But  the  unbending  scholar  revealed  to  the 
haughty  foe  an  antagonist  as  proud  and  resolute  as  it¬ 
self.  He  supplied  what  the  hour  demanded,  a  sublime 
faith  in  liberty,  the  uncompromising  spirit  which  inter¬ 
preted  the  Constitution  and  the  statutes  for  freedom  and 
not  for  slavery.  The  fiery  agitation  became  bloody 
battle.  Still  he  strode  on  before.  “  I  am  only  six  weeks 
behind  you,”  said  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  Western  fron¬ 
tiersman,  to  the  New  England  scholar;  and  along  the 
path  that  the  scholar  blazed  in  the  wild  wilderness  of 
civil  war,  the  path  of  emancipation  and  the  constitu¬ 
tional  equality  of  all  citizens,  his  country  followed  fast 
to  union,  peace,  and  prosperity.  The  public  service  of 
this  scholar  was  not  less  than  that  of  any  of  his  prede¬ 
cessors  or  any  of  his  contemporaries.  Criticise  him  as 
you  will,  mark  every  shadow  you  can  find, 

“  Though  round  his  base  the  rolling  clouds  are  spread. 
Eternal  sunshine  settles  on  his  head.” 

It  would  indeed  be  a  sorrowful  confession  for  this 
day  and  this  assembly,  to  own  that  experience  proves 
the  air  of  the  college  to  be  suffocating  to  generous 
thought  and  heroic  action.  Here  it  would  be  especially 
unjust,  for  what  son  of  this  college  does  not  proudly 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


331 


remember  that  when,  in  the  Revolution,  Rhode  Island 
was  the  seat  of  war,  the  college  boys  left  the  recitation- 
room  for  the  field,  and  the  college  became  a  soldiers’ 
barrack  and  hospital  ?  And  what  son  of  any  college  in 
the  land,  what  educated  American,  does  not  recall  with 
grateful  pride  that  legion  of  college  youth  in  our  own 
day — “  Integer  vitae  scelerisque  purus  ” — who  were  not 
cowards  or  sybarites  because  they  were  scholars,  but 
whose  consecration  to  the  cause  of  country  and  man 
vindicated  the  words  of  John  Milton,  “A  complete  and 
generous  education  is  that  which  fits  a  man  to  perform 
justly,  skilfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  offices,  both 
private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war?’’  That  is  the 
praise  of  the  American  scholar.  The  glory  of  this  day 
and  of  this  Commencement  season  is  that  the  pioneers, 
the  courageous  and  independent  leaders  in  public  af¬ 
fairs,  the  great  apostles  of  religious  and  civil  liberty, 
have  been,  in  large  part,  educated  men,  sustained  by 
the  sympathy  of  the  educated  class. 

But  this  is  not  true  of  the  past  alone.  As  educated 
America  was  the  constructive  power,  so  it  is  still  the 
true  conservative  force  of  the  Republic.  It  is  decried 
as  priggish  and  theoretical.  But  so  Richard  Henry  Lee 
condemned  the  Constitution  as  the  work  of  visionaries. 
They  are  always  called  visionaries  who  hold  that  moral¬ 
ity  is  stronger  than  a  majority.  Goldwin  Smith  says 
that  Cobden  felt  that  at  heart  England  was  a  gentleman 
and  not  a  bully.  So  thinks  the  educated  American  of 
his  own  country.  He  has  faith  enough  in  the  people  to 
appeal  to  them  against  themselves,  for  he  knows  that 
the  cardinal  condition  of  popular  government  is  the 


332 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


ability  of  the  people  to  see  and  correct  their  own  errors. 
In  a  Republic,  as  the  majority  must  control  action,  the 
majority  tends  constantly  to  usurp  control  of  opinion. 
Its  decree  is  accepted  as  the  standard  of  right  and 
wrong.  To  differ  is  grotesque  and  eccentric.  To  pro¬ 
test  is  preposterous.  To  defy  is  incendiary  and  revolu¬ 
tionary.  But  just  here  interposes  educated  intelligence, 
and  asserts  the  worth  of  self-reliance  and  the  power  of 
the  individual.  Gathering  the  wisdom  of  ages  as  into 
a  sheaf  of  sunbeams,  it  shows  that  progress  springs  from 
the  minority,  and  that  if  it  will  but  stand  fast  time  will 
give  it  victory. 

It  is  the  educated  voice  of  the  country  which  teaches 
patience  in  politics  and  strengthens  the  conscience  of 
the  individual  citizen  by  showing  that  servility  to  a  ma¬ 
jority  is  as  degrading  as  servility  to  a  Sultan  or  a  Grand 
Lama.  Emerson  said  that  of  all  his  friends  he  honored 
none  more  than  a  quiet  old  Quaker  lady  who,  if  she 
said  yea  and  the  whole  world  said  nay,  still  said  yea. 
One  of  the  pleasantest  stories  of  Garfield  is  that  of  his 
speech  to  his  constituents  in  which  he  quaintly  vindi¬ 
cated  his  own  independence.  “  I  would  do  anything  to 
win  your  regard,”  he  said,  “  but  there  is  one  man  whose 
good  opinion  I  must  have  above  all,  and  without  whose 
approval  I  can  do  nothing.  That  is  the  man  with  whom 
I  get  up  every  morning  and  go  to  bed  every  night, 
whose  thoughts  are  my  thoughts,  whose  prayers  are 
my  prayers ;  I  cannot  buy  your  confidence  at  the  cost 
of  his  respect.”  Never  was  the  scholarly  Garfield  so 
truly  a  man,  so  patriotically  an  American,  and  his  con¬ 
stituents  were  prouder  than  ever  of  their  representative 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 


333 


who  complimented  them  by  asserting  his  own  man¬ 
hood. 

It  is  the  same  voice  which  exposes  the  sophists  who 
mislead  the  mob  and  pitilessly  scourges  the  demagogues 
who  flatter  it.  “  All  men  know  more  than  any  man,” 
haughtily  shout  the  larger  and  lesser  Talleyrands.  That  is 
a  French  epigram,  replies  the  scholar,  but  not  a  general 
truth.  A  crowd  is  not  wiser  than  the  wisest  man  in  it. 
For  the  purposes  of  the  voyage  the  crew  does  not  know 
more  than  the  master  of  the  ship.  The  Boston  town¬ 
meeting  was  not  more  sagacious  than  Sam  Adams. 
“Vox  populi  vox  Dei,”  screams  the  foaming  rhetoric  of 
the  stump ;  the  voice  of  the  people  is  the  voice  of  God. 
The  voice  of  the  people  in  London,  says  history,  de¬ 
clared  against  street-lamps  and  denounced  inoculation 
as  wanton  wickedness.  The  voice  of  the  people  in  Paris 
demanded  the  head  of  Charlotte  Corday.  The  voice  of 
the  people  in  Jerusalem  cried,  “Away  with  Himl  cru¬ 
cify  Him  !  crucify  Him  !”  “  God  is  on  the  side  of  the 

strongest  battalions,”  sneers  the  party  swindler  who 
buys  a  majority  with  money  or  place.  On  the  contrary, 
answers  the  cool  critic,  reading  history  and  interpreting 
its  lessons,  God  was  with  Leonidas,  and  not  with  Xerxes. 
He  was  with  the  exile  John  Robinson  at  Leyden,  not 
with  Laud  and  the  hierarchy  at  Westminster. 

Despite  Napoleon  even  battles  are  not  sums  in  arith¬ 
metic.  Strange  that  a  general,  half  of  whose  success 
was  due  to  a  sentiment,  the  glory  of  France,  which 
welded  his  army  into  a  thunderbolt,  and  still  burns  for 
us  in  the  fervid  song  of  Beranger,  should  have  supposed 
that  it  is  numbers  and  not  conviction  and  enthusiasm 


334  THE  leadership  of  educated  men 

which  win  the  final  victory.  The  career  of  no  man  in 
our  time  illustrates  this  truth  more  signally  than  Gari¬ 
baldi’s.  He  was  the  symbol  of  the  sentiment  which  the 
wise  Cavour  moulded  into  a  nation,  and  he  will  be  al¬ 
ways  canonized  more  universally  than  any  other  Italian 
patriot,  because  no  other  represents  so  purely  and  sim¬ 
ply  to  the  national  imagination  the  Italian  ideal  of  pa¬ 
triotic  devotion.  His  enthusiasm  of  conviction  made 
no  calculation  of  defeat,  because  while  he  could  be  baf¬ 
fled  he  could  not  be  beaten.  It  was  a  stream  flowing 
from  a  mountain  height,  which  might  be  delayed  or  di¬ 
verted,  but  knew  instinctively  that  it  must  reach  the 
sea.  “  Italia  fara  da  se.'y  Garibaldi  was  that  faith  in¬ 
carnate,  and  the  prophecy  is  fulfilled.  Italy,  more  proud 
than  stricken,  bears  his  bust  to  the  Capitol,  and  there 
the  eloquent  marble  will  say  while  Rome  endures,  that 
one  man  with  God,  with  country,  with  duty  and  con¬ 
science,  is  at  last  the  majority. 

But  still  further,  it  is  educated  citizenship  which, 
while  defining  the  rightful  limitation  of  the  power  of 
the  majority,  is  most  loyal  to  its  legitimate  authority, 
and  foremost  always  in  rescuing  it  from  the  treachery 
of  political  pedlers  and  parasites.  The  rural  statesmen 
who  founded  the  Republic  saw  in  vision  a  homogeneous 
and  intelligent  community,  the  peace  and  prosperity 
and  intelligence  of  the  State  reflected  in  the  virtue  and 
wisdom  of  the  government.  But  is  this  our  actual 
America  or  a  glimpse  of  Arcadia?  Is  this  the  United 
States  or  Plato’s  Republic  or  Harrington’s  Oceana  or 
Sir  Thomas  More’s  Utopia?  What  are  the  political 
maxims  of  the  hour?  In  Rome,  do  as  the  Romans  do. 


THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN  335 

Fight  fire  with  fire.  Beat  the  devil  with  his  own  weap¬ 
ons.  Take  men  as  they  are,  and  don’t  affect  superior 
goodness.  Beware  of  the  politics  of  the  moon  and  of 
Sunday-school  statesmanship.  This  is  our  current  po¬ 
litical  wisdom  and  the  results  are  familiar.  11  This  is  a 
nasty  State/’  cries  the  eager  partisan,  “  and  I  hope  we 
have  done  nasty  work  enough  to  carry  it.”  “  The  con¬ 
duct  of  the  opposition,”  says  another,  “  was  infamous. 
They  resorted  to  every  kind  of  base  and  contemptible 
means,  and,  thank  God,  we  have  beaten  them  at  their 
own  game.”  The  majority  is  overthrown  by  the  polit¬ 
ical  machinery  intended  to  secure  its  will.  The  ma¬ 
chinery  is  oiled  by  corruption  and  grinds  the  honest 
majority  to  powder.  And  it  is  educated  citizenship,  the 
wisdom  and  energy  of  men  who  are  classed  as  prigs, 
pedants,  and  impracticables,  which  is  first  and  most  effi¬ 
cient  in  breaking  the  machine  and  releasing  the  major¬ 
ity.  It  was  this  which  rescued  New  York  from  Tweed, 
and  which  everywhere  challenges  and  demolishes  a 
Tweed  tyranny  by  whatever  name  it  may  be  known. 

Every  year  at  the  college  Commencement  the  Amer¬ 
ican  scholar  is  exhorted  to  do  his  duty-.  But  every 
newspaper  proves  that  he  is  doing  it,  For  he  is  the 
most  practical  politician  who  shows  his  fellow-citizens, 
as  the  wise  old  sailor  told  his  shipmates,  that  “  God  has 
somehow  so  fixed  the  world  that  a  man  can  afford  to  do 
about  right.”  Take  from  the  country  at  this  moment 
the  educated  power,  which  is  contemned  as  romantic 
and  sentimental,  and  you  would  take  from  the  army  its 
general,  from  the  ship  its  compass,  from  national  action 
its  moral  mainspring.  It  is  not  the  demagogue  and  the 


336  THE  LEADERSHIP  OF  EDUCATED  MEN 

shouting  rabble ;  it  is  the  people  heeding  the  word  of 
the  thinker  and  the  lesson  of  experience,  which  secures 
the  welfare  of  the  American  republic  and  enlarges  hu¬ 
man  liberty.  If  American  scholarship  is  not  in  place,  it 
is  in  power.  If  it  does  not  carry  the  election  to-day,  it 
determines  the  policy  of  to-morrow.  Calm,  patient,  con¬ 
fident,  heroic,  in  our  busy  and  material  life  it  perpetu¬ 
ally  vindicates  the  truth  that  the  things  which  are  un¬ 
seen  are  eternal.  So  in  the  cloudless  midsummer  sky 
serenely  shines  the  moon,  while  the  tumultuous  ocean 
rolls  and  murmurs  beneath,  the  type  of  illimitable  and 
unbridled  power ;  but,  resistlessly  marshalled  by  celes¬ 
tial  laws,  all  the  wild  waters,  heaving  from  pole  to  pole, 
rise  and  recede,  obedient  to  the  mild  queen  of  heaven. 

Brethren  of  Brown,  we  have  come  hither  as  our  fa¬ 
thers  came,  as  our  children  will  come,  to  renew  our  ob¬ 
servation  of  that  celestial  law ;  and  here,  upon  the  old 
altar  of  fervid  faith  and  boundless  anticipation,  let  us 
pledge  ourselves  once  more  that,  as  the  courage  and 
energy  of  educated  men  fired  the  morning  gun  and  led 
the  contest  of  the  Revolution,  founded  and  framed  the 
Union  and,  purifying  it  as  with  fire,  have  maintained 
the  national  life  to  this  hour,  so,  day  by  day,  we  will 
do  our  part  to  lift  America  above  the  slough  of  merce¬ 
nary  politics  and  the  cunning  snares  of  trade,  steadily 
forward  towards  the  shining  heights  which  the  hopes  of 
its  nativity  foretold. 


XIV 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER 

EDUCATION 

AN  ADDRESS  IN  COMMEMORATION  OF  THE  CENTENNIAL  AN¬ 
NIVERSARY  OF  THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  UNI¬ 
VERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK,  AND 
THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  BOARD 
OF  REGENTS,  DELIVERED  AT 
ALBANY,  N.  Y.,  JULY 


The  Centennial  Anniversary  of  the  establishment  of  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  the  State  of  New  York  was  celebrated  at  the  annual 
meeting  of  the  Board  of  Regents  of  the  University,  at  Albany, 
July  8,  1884. 

Mr.  Curtis  had  been  a  member  of  the  Board  since  1864. 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE 
HIGHER  EDUCATION 


The  great  Puritan  poet,  addressing  the  great  Puritan 
general,  naturally  recalled  his  famous  fields  of  battle ; 
but,  contemplating  other  and  different  services  to  the 
State,  he  exclaimed  : 

“  While  Darwent  streams,  with  blood  of  Scots  imbru’d, 

And  Dunbar  field  resound  thy  praises  loud, 

And  Worcester’s  laureate  wreath,  yet  much  remains 
To  conquer  still :  Peace  hath  her  victories 
No  less  than  those  of  War.” 

It  is  not  the  drum-beat  nor  the  bugle-call,  the  proud 
clash  of  military  music  and  the  thunder  of  artillery, 
which  now  for  many  years  have  bidden  us  to  the  cen¬ 
tennial  commemorations  of  battles,  that  summon  us  to¬ 
day.  Famous  in  war,  the  stately  river  upon  whose 
banks  we  stand  is  not  less  renowned  for  its  victories  of 
peace.  In  the  long  contest  of  armed  Europe  during 
the  eighteenth  century  for  the  control  of  the  Western 
continent,  as  in  the  military  strategy  of  the  American 
Revolution,  the  Hudson  River  was  still  the  prize.  Upon 
the  Hudson  the  great  contest  culminated  and  turned 
towards  triumph.  Upon  the  Hudson  the  desperate  en- 


340  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

deavor  to  seize  by  treachery  what  could  not  be  gained 
by  honorable  force  was  foiled.  Upon  the  Hudson  the 
patriot  army  was  disbanded,  and  from  its  mouth  the  de¬ 
feated  British  army  sailed  away.  But  upon  the  banks 
of  the  Hudson,  also,  New  York,  one  of  the  united 
colonies,  constituted  herself  an  independent  State  ; 
upon  the  Hudson  she  ratified  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  upon  the  Hudson  Washington  was 
inaugurated  and  the  national  government  began.  Upon 
the  Hudson  Robert  Fulton,  with  happy  daring,  freed 
the  commerce  of  the  world  from  dependence  upon  the 
fickle  wind,  and  De  Witt  Clinton  drew  to  its  bosom  the 
harvests  of  the  Western  prairies,  and  made  it  the  high¬ 
way  of  commercial  empire,  as  nature  had  made  it  the 
path  of  military  power.  Thus  associated  with  great 
and  beneficent  events,  the  rejoicing  river,  which  its 
discoverer  hoped  might  be  a  shorter  passage  to  the 
spiced  and  golden  East,  flows  through  a  region  fairer 
than  fabled  Cathay,  teeming  with  busy  people,  hum¬ 
ming  with  various  industry,  its  spacious  valley  the 
home  of,  perhaps,  greater  happiness,  intelligence,  and 
prosperity  than  the  valley  of  any  other  river  in  the 
world.  It  is  to  the  shore  of  this  historic  stream,  still 
murmuring  with  the  music  of  the  centennial  commem¬ 
oration  of  victories  of  the  war,  that  we  come  to  cele¬ 
brate  the  centenary  of  an  event  hardly  less  significant, 
the  first  great  victory  of  the  peace  that  followed  the 
war,  the  organization  of  the  system  of  education  in 
New  York. 

Nothing  in  the  American  Union,  with  all  its  homo¬ 
geneity,  is  more  striking  than  the  differences  of  its 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  341 

communities,  which  speak  the  same  language,  share 
the  same  religious  faith,  cherish  the  same  national  tra¬ 
ditions,  which  are  welded  together  by  every  tie  of 
blood  and  common  interest,  and  which  only  nominal 
and  invisible  bounds  divide.  With  all  this  intimate  and 
indissoluble  union,  a  certain  individual  character  and 
spirit,  a  certain  tone  in  the  speech,  a  form  of  phrase, 
a  peculiarity  of  temperament,  a  local  tradition  and 
pride,  a  thousand  details  which  instantly  and  unerr¬ 
ingly  distinguish  one  community  from  another,  are  as 
obvious  as  the  general  resemblance  and  the  national 
sympathy.  It  is  this  vigor  and  raciness  of  local  life 
which  assure  the  united  power  and  the  common  pros¬ 
perity,  by  instinctively  repelling  all  extreme  and  dan¬ 
gerous  consolidation.  Those  who  fear  a  perilous  po¬ 
litical  centralization  and  overthrow  of  local  rights  and 
government  by  national  legislation  and  judicial  con¬ 
struction  forget  the  political  genius  of  the  English 
race,  from  which  we  are  chiefly  sprung,  and  the  tradh 
tion  of  the  American  people.  Americans  will  never 
confound  the  necessary  conditions  of  national  union 
with  centralized  empire,  and  the  first  serious  effort  to 
change  the  essential  basis  of  that  union,  which  is  local 
feeling  and  local  self-government,  would  be  the  last. 

Between  no  neighboring  communities  in  the  country 
is  the  local  difference  more  pronounced  than  between 
New  York  and  New  England,  which,  practically,  the 
Hudson  River  divides.  It  begins  with  the  European 
settlement  of  each,  and  in  nothing  is  it  more  striking 
than  in  the  early  interest  in  education.  The  most  pow¬ 
erful  motive  for  the  foundation  of  a  State,  the  desire 


342  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

to  enjoy  religious  and  civil  liberty,  was  the  impulse  of 
both  branches  of  the  New  England  emigration.  But 
men  and  women  who  are  courageous  and  enduring 
enough  to  leave  a  tyrannical  State,  are  not  necessarily 
wise  and  persistent  enough  to  found  a  free  and  pro¬ 
gressive  commonwealth ;  and  the  significant  fact  in  the 
settlement  of  New  England,  and  the  key  of  its  domi¬ 
nating  influence  upon  the  continent,  are  not  only  that 
it  was  effected  by  strong  and  sturdy  devotees,  who  felt 
religious  freedom  in  a  savage  wilderness  to  be  more 
precious  than  the  sweet  and  sacred  charm  of  an  ancient 
and  historic  home,  but  that  the  emigration  was  led  by 
educated  men.  The  Puritan  flight  from  England  to 
Amsterdam  and  Leyden,  from  Delft  Haven  to  Plym¬ 
outh,  and  the  later  voyage  to  Salem  and  Boston,  was 
the  going  forth  of  a  church  and  a  school,  a  mighty 
march  from  the  old  world  and  the  old  age  to  the  new 
world  and  the  new  age  by  scholars  and  divines ;  and 
as  in  the  university  the  Reformation  arose  to  organize 
modern  Europe,  from  the  university  also  came  the  crea¬ 
tive  impulse  and  the  moral  energy  which  have  chiefly 
directed  American  civilization.  It  was  moral  energy 
— with  a  thousand  limitations,  indeed,  but  directed  by 
educated  intelligence — which  planted  New  England ; 
and  on  this  happy  centenary  we  can  recall  no  more 
significant  fact  than  that  the  seal  of  the  university, 
that  is,  of  highly  educated  leadership,  is  impressed 
upon  the  very  beginning  of  our  national  development. 

And  that  the  university  should  have  been  the  nursery 
of  colonial  America  is  not  surprising.  The  controlling 
American  movement  sprang  from  the  Reformation.  It 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  343 

sought  freedom  of  worship  for  itself ;  and  as  religious 
progress  in  the  old  world  was  the  child  of  the  univer¬ 
sity,  it  is  to  the  university  that  we  owe  civil  liberty 
in  the  new  world.  Wickliffe,  John  Huss,  Jerome  of 
Prague,  and  Luther;  all  the  leaders  of  the  new  learn¬ 
ing  in  England,  Colet,  Erasmus,  Sir  Thomas  More ;  all 
the  fathers  of  the  Reformation — spoke  from  the  uni¬ 
versity.  In  the  university  alone  could  the  high  ar¬ 
gument  between  the  Roman  Church  and  the  human 
mind  be  comprehended  and  maintained,  and  there  the 
debate  between  power  and  liberty,  between  alleged 
spiritual  authority  and  sacred  tradition  and  the  instinct¬ 
ive  and  inherent  sovereignty  of  the  individual  mind, 
ended  in  the  happy  emancipation  of  modern  civiliza¬ 
tion  from  mediaeval  slavery.  In  America  that  eman¬ 
cipation  was  accomplished.  The  university  was  the 
school  of  the  clergy,  the  clergy  were  the  leaders  of  the 
people.  Roger  Williams,  a  clergyman,  a  graduate  of 
English  Cambridge,  first  in  America  and  in  the  world, 
declared  the  fundamental  principle  of  political  and  re¬ 
ligious  freedom,  the  principle  of  soul -liberty,  and  the 
absolute  separation  of  Church  and  State.  From  Jona¬ 
than  Mayhew’s  pulpit  flashed  the  morning  gun  of  the 
American  Revolution.  The  university  emancipated  the 
human  mind,  and  of  that  emancipation  the  triumphant 
American  Republic  is  the  most  glorious  result. 

As  the  university  was  the  asylum  of  liberty  in  the 
earlier  modern  epoch,  so  in  no  great  modern  State  has 
the  university  been  merely  a  pensioned  parasite.  It 
has  been  rather  the  well-spring  of  national  life  and  the 
foe  of  tyranny.  When  Metternich  was  Austria,  he  dis- 


344  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

trusted  nothing  so  much  as  the  university,  and  Russia 
quails  before  it  to-day  as  a  mighty  masked  battery  of 
liberty.  When  Prussia  fell  at  Jena,  the  greatest  states¬ 
man  of  his  time,  Baron  Stein,  whom  Napoleon  feared 
more  than  he  feared  an  army,  founded  the  University  of 
Berlin  in  the  hope  to  arouse  a  spirit  of  patriotism  power¬ 
ful  enough  to  revive  a  crushed  and  prostrate  nation  and 
to  stay  the  overwhelming  Napoleonic  despotism.  By 
the  enthusiasm  of  her  people  Prussia  was  nationally  re¬ 
deemed,  and  no  redeeming  impulse  was  more  effective 
than  that  of  the  university.  When  I  heard  its  lectures 
thirty  years  ago,  it  was  but  one  of  the  nineteen  univer¬ 
sities  of  Germany,  but  it  had  a  hundred  and  fifty  pro¬ 
fessors  and  four  thousand  students,  and  the  nineteen 
universities  were  the  nineteen  most  dangerous  and  un¬ 
tiring  foes  of  monarchial  reaction  and  of  the  Holy  Al¬ 
liance  of  despots. 

The  American  colonial  colleges  were  generally  found¬ 
ed  or,  at  least,  fostered  by  graduates  of  English  Cam¬ 
bridge  and  Oxford,  and  chiefly  by  Cambridge  men. 
Many  of  the  teachers  were  of  the  same  universities,  and 
the  courses  of  study  and  the  general  discipline  were  pat¬ 
terned  on  those  in  the  colleges  of  the  mother  institutions. 
The  chief  difference  of  method  lay  in  the  conferring  of 
degrees,  which  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  was  the  espe¬ 
cial  function  of  the  university  and  not  of  the  college. 
During  the  colonial  period  there  were  nine  colleges  in 
the  country:  Harvard,  founded  in  1636,  being  the  old¬ 
est,  and  Rutgers,  in  1771,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
Revolution,  the  youngest.  But  most  of  them  were 
poor  and  puny.  William  and  Mary,  the  second  in  the 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  345 

list  and  the  mother  of  the  oldest  of  college  Greek-let- 
ter  societies,  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa,  had  no  authority  to 
grant  degrees,  and  in  1730  it  was  little  better  than  a 
boarding-school.  One  of  its  own  fellows  described  it 
as  “  a  college  without  a  chapel,  without  a  scholarship, 
and  without  a  statute,  a  library  without  books,  a  presi¬ 
dent  without  a  fixed  salary,  and  a  burgess  without  elect¬ 
ors.”  The  young  Virginia  planter  owed  little  to  the 
Virginia  college.  He  was  taught  by  the  domestic 
chaplain  or,  if  a  better  education  were  sought,  he  was 
sent  to  the  Northern  colonies  or  to  England.  It  was 
in  New  England,  naturally,  that  the  most  efficient  col¬ 
leges  were  found,  for  they  all  sprang  from  the  same 
devoted  and  sturdy  spirit  that  had  established  Har¬ 
vard.  The  legend  of  Dartmouth,  the  eighth  college 
founded  in  the  country,  was  vox  clamantis  in  deserto . 
And  upon  the  solitary  shores  of  the  upper  Connecticut, 
in  1769,  where  still  the  wild-cat  cried  in  the  thicket 
and  the  wolf  hovered  about  the  farm,  and  the  rigors 
of  the  climate  and  the  exposure  of  the  frontier  were 
little  relieved,  a  college  devoted  to  the  higher  educa¬ 
tion  might  well  call  itself  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness.  But  the  character  that  heeded  the  voice,  the 
impulse  which  founded  and  sustained  the  college,  the 
feeling  which  years  afterwards  bred  in  the  heart  of 
Daniel  Webster’s  father  the  purpose  to  send  his  son 
thither,  and  which  nourished  in  the  son’s  breast  the 
desire  to  go — this  loyalty  to  knowledge  as  a  source  of 
power,  and  to  intellectual  training  as  the  means  of  its 
effective  exercise — is  one  of  the  proudest  instincts  of 
human  nature,  and  one  of  the  vital  sources  of  Ameri- 


346  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

can  greatness.  Never  was  Webster  manlier,  never  was 
his  eloquence  purer,  than  when,  in  his  famous  argument 
in  the  Dartmouth  College  case,  which  established  one 
of  the  great  beacons  of  our  jurisprudence,  he  said,  over¬ 
powered  by  generous  emotion,  his  eyes  tearful  and  his 
voice  faltering,  “  Sir,  it  is  a  small  college,  but  there 
are  those  that  love  it.” 

The  spirit  which  the  colonial  colleges  fostered  was 
a  large  and  liberalizing  spirit,  true  to  the  historic 
university  tradition,  and  naturally,  therefore,  these  col¬ 
leges  produced  the  champions  and  the  chiefs  of  the 
political  revolution.  As  schools  of  education  strictly, 
they  were  as  effective  as  the  colleges  of  the  half- 
century  after  the  Revolution  ;  but  they  imparted 
a  training,  also,  as  the  result  proved,  which  con¬ 
formed  to  Milton’s  familiar  requirement  and  to  the 
wisdom  of  Wolfe,  the  pupil  of  Melanchthon,  that  to 
understand  Latin  and  Greek  is  not  learning  in  itself, 
but  the  entrance-hall  and  ante- chamber  of  learning. 
During  the  colonial  period  the  number  of  college  grad¬ 
uates  was  always  small.  The  whole  number  that  was 
graduated  at  Kings  College,  in  New  York,  from  its 
first  commencement,  in  1758,  to  the  day  when  it  closed 
its  doors  in  the  Revolution,  was  not  more  than  a  hun¬ 
dred.  But  a  little  leaven  leaveneth  the  whole  lump. 
The  Oriental  tradition  said  that  a  shred  of  ambergris 
flavored  the  sultan’s  cup  for  a  thousand  years.  There 
were  great  colonial  leaders  who  were  not  college-bred, 
for,  indeed,  the  university  does  not  monopolize  the 
virtues  and  the  moral  graces,  nor  sequester  for  its  own 
3  children  genius  and  wisdom  and  statesmanship  and 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  347 

common-sense.  Washington  and  Franklin  and  Abra¬ 
ham  Lincoln  were  not  college  men,  and  greater  service 
than  theirs  to  their  country  and  to  mankind  can  no 
man  render.  Does  it  follow  that  the  service  of  Sam¬ 
uel  Adams  and  John  Adams,  of  James  Otis  and  James 
Madison,  of  John  Jay  and  Alexander  Hamilton,  would 
have  been  greater,  or  as  great,  without  the  mental  dis¬ 
cipline  and  the  wisdom  which  come  from  enlarged  and 
illuminating  knowledge  of  human  affairs,  which  it  is 
the  purpose  of  the  university  to  impart  ?  Because  the 
genius  of  Shakespeare  asks  nothing  of  the  schools, 
shall  the  schools  be  closed  ?  Because  original  and  con¬ 
trolling  intellectual  power  cannot  be  imparted  by  edu¬ 
cation,  shall  it  not  be  fostered  and  disciplined,  directed, 
stimulated,  and  restrained,  by  the  wisdom  of  all  the 
ages  and  the  experience  of  mankind?  Abraham  Lin¬ 
coln  was  not  college-bred.  But  Abraham  Lincoln, 
lying  before  the  fire  of  pine  knots  that  he  might  read 
his  book,  was  inspired  by  that  lofty  desire  to  lift  his 
mind  into 

“  An  ampler  ether,  a  diviner  air,” 

which  is  the  demand  for  the  utmost  knowledge,  the 
completest  mental  and  moral  discipline — the  instinct 
from  which  the  university  springs. 

Into  this  realm  of  the  higher  education  New  York,  a 
trading  colony  with  a  population  of  various  nationali¬ 
ties,  was  slow  to  enter,  and  it  was  not  until  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  twenty  years  after  the  settlement  that  a  col¬ 
lege  was  founded.  The  chief  citizens  of  the  colony 
were  merchants,  and  their  sons  passed  from  the  gram¬ 
mar-school  to  the  counting-house  and  to  the  West  In- 


348  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

dia  Islands.  The  first  historian  of  New  York,  Chief 
Justice  Smith,  says  that  for  many  years  he  and  the 
deputy  judges  were  the  only  college  graduates,  except 
the  clergy  of  the  English  Church;  and  in  1746,  the  year 
in  which  a  law  was  passed  authorizing  a  lottery  to  pro¬ 
vide  money  to  found  a  college,  he  knew  but  thirteen 
graduates  in  the  province,  and  all  of  them  young  men. 
The  historian  draws  a  sorrowful  picture  of  the  condi¬ 
tion  of  education.  He  praises  warmly  the  charms  of 
his  lovely  countrywomen,  but  he  admits  that  there  is 
nothing  that  they  so  generally  neglect  as  reading ;  that 
the  schools  are  of  the  lowest  order,  the  instructors 
wanting  instruction,  the  common  speech  extremely  cor¬ 
rupted,  and  bad  taste  everywhere  evident  in  public  and 
private  proceedings. 

There  was  naturally  a  feeling  of  shame  in  the  prov¬ 
ince  that  the  English  universities  and  the  colleges  of 
New  England  should  educate  the  young  New-Yorker, 
and,  although  with  evident  doubt  and  difficulty,  at 
length,  in  1751,  the  money  was  raised,  and  after  some 
vigorous  discussion  and  opposition  lest  the  new  institu¬ 
tion  should  fall  under  sectarian  control,  the  college  was 
chartered  as  Kings  College  in  1754.  It  was  a  memora¬ 
ble  epoch  in  our  history.  In  June  of  that  year  the  Al¬ 
bany  Congress  assembled,  in  which  Dr.  Franklin  pro¬ 
posed  his  plan  of  colonial  union,  and  in  the  same  year 
the  French  built  Fort  Duquesne,  upon  the  present  site 
of  Pittsburg,  in  Pennsylvania.  The  next  year  or  two, 
while  the  college  president  was  teaching  his  dozen  pu¬ 
pils,  were  the  years  of  the  French  expulsion  from  Nova 
Scotia,  of  Washington’s  march  to  Fort  Duquesne,  and 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  349 

of  Braddock’s  defeat ;  of  the  vain  attack  of  Sir  William 
Johnson  upon  Crown  Point,  and  of  the  opening  contest 
for  the  American  continent  between  France  and  Eng¬ 
land,  which  was  to  end  upon  the  Heights  of  Abraham. 
Frederick  the  Great  was  conquering  in  Germany;  Rob¬ 
ert  Clive  was  subduing  and  stripping  India  ;  and  Will¬ 
iam  Pitt,  as  Prime  Minister  of  England,  held  the  mighty 
thunderbolts  of  Britain  in  his  hand,  and  every  day  broke 
with  the  flash  and  the  thunder  of  British  victory. 

This  was  the  moment  when  Kings  College  opened  its 
modest  doors  in  the  little  town  of  ten  thousand  inhab¬ 
itants  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson,  and  it  is  curious  to 
contrast  its  beginning  and  development  with  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Gottingen  in  Germany,  which  the  same  King 
George  II. — from  whom  the  New  York  college  took  its 
name — had  founded  twenty  years  before  in  a  smaller 
town  in  another  part  of  his  dominions.  Towards  the 
end  of  the  century,  Gottingen  was  the  most  brilliant 
university  in  Europe  for  the  eminence  of  its  teachers 
and  the  variety  and  value  of  its  lectures.  In  less  than 
a  hundred  years  from  its  foundation  it  counted  three 
thousand  students,  eighty-nine  professors,  and  among 
them  some  of  the  most  famous  scholars  in  the  world, 
a  library  of  three  hundred  thousand  volumes  and  five 
thousand  manuscripts,  and  even  now  the  town  of  Got¬ 
tingen  has  but  eighteen  thousand  inhabitants.  The 
American  college,  when  it  had  completed  its  first  cen¬ 
tury,  in  a  town  which  had  grown  from  ten  thousand  to 
six  hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  showed  by  its  cata¬ 
logue  one  hundred  and  forty  students  and  six  professors. 

Yet  such  meagre  figures  are  not  the  measure  of  its 


350  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

splendid  service.  In  the  twenty  years  from  its  founda¬ 
tion  in  1754  to  the  beginning  of  the  Revolutionary  war, 
as  I  have  said,  only  one  hundred  students  graduated 
from  Kings  College.  But  they  were  an  army  in  them¬ 
selves.  The  college  in  those  creative  days,  when  a  great 
nation  was  to  be  born  and  great  historic  events  to  be 
achieved,  trained  men  for  leaders.  It  graduated  schol¬ 
ars  less  apt  to  edit  Greek  plays  than  to  make  American 
history.  It  produced  men  of  courage,  insight,  and  te¬ 
nacity,  who  had  learned  from  literature  and  the  annals 
of  all  ages  the  resources  of  liberty  and  the  sophistries 
of  power.  They  were  scholars  of  the  world,  not  of  the 
cloister.  Their  degrees  admitted  them  ad  eundem  with 
Pym  and  Milton,  with  Eliot  and  John  Hampden.  How¬ 
ever  reactionary  the  officers  of  the  college,  John  Jay 
and  Robert  Livingston,  Gouverneur  Morris  and  Egbert 
Benson,  Philip  Van  Cortlandt  and  Henry  Rutgers,  with 
others  of  not  less  illustrious  family  names  in  New  York, 
were  educated  Sons  of  Liberty,  and  in  all  the  advancing 
life  of  the  province  they  were  the  conspicuous  leaders. 
And  when  the  Tory  president,  Dr.  Cooper,  a  former  fel¬ 
low  of  Oxford,  entered  the  lists  for  the  British  govern¬ 
ment,  he  was  vanquished  by  a  masked  antagonist  from 
under  whose  visor,  when  it  was  lifted,  looked  the  face  of 
the  marvellous  boy,  Alexander  Hamilton,  then  a  youth 
of  eighteen  and  a  freshman  of  the  college. 

Thus,  as  the  university  had  guided  the  controlling 
emigration  to  the  country,  and  had  fostered  and  direct¬ 
ed  the  instinct  of  nationality,  so  also  it  supplied  the 
leadership  for  national  independence.  As  the  debate 
passed  from  sermon  and  pamphlet  and  argument  in 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  35 1 

courts  of  law,  from  the  town-meeting  and  the  caucus 
and  the  committee  of  correspondence,  to  the  march  of 
armies  and  the  battle-field,  the  colleges  closed  their 
doors  indeed,  but  not  until  the  statesmen  of  the  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress  and  the  Constitutional  Convention  had 
passed  out  of  them.  When  the  war  ended,  and  the 
united  colonies,  loosely  huddled  in  a  chaotic  confedera¬ 
tion,  were  to  be  bound  in  a  flexible,  powerful,  and  har¬ 
monious  national  union,  once  more  the  colleges  fur¬ 
nished  the  builders  of  the  State,  and  of  the  fifty-five 
members  of  the  Constitutional  Convention,  thirty-three 
were  graduates.  When  the  Convention  adjourned,  Co¬ 
lumbia  and  Princeton  united  in  Hamilton,  Jay,  and 
Madison  to  present  to  the  country  the  great  argument 
for  the  Constitution,  and  it  was  Alexander  Hamilton,  a 
son  of  Columbia,  who  lifted  New  York  into  the  Union, 
and  a  son  of  Princeton,  James  Madison,  who  placed  Vir¬ 
ginia  by  her  side. 

These  are  facts  to  be  proudly  remembered  and  em¬ 
phasized  upon  this  occasion  and  in  this  place,  because 
there  is  a  common  and  cheap  depreciation  of  the  col¬ 
lege,  as  if  it  were  a  nursery  of  dainty  feebleness  or  use¬ 
less  pedantry,  from  which  a  vigorous  manhood  cannot 
be  expected  to  issue.  Indeed,  it  has  become  a  familiar 
sneer  against  every  endeavor  for  purer  politics  and  a 
higher  political  morality  that  it  is  favored  by  college- 
bred  men,  as  if  trained  intelligence,  intellectual  expan¬ 
sion,  and  moral  elevation  were  less  fitted  to  deal  with 
questions  of  the  public  welfare  than  the  venal  huckster¬ 
ing  which  makes  politics  a  trade,  and  the  political  igno¬ 
rance  which  thrives  upon  political  corruption.  The  re- 


352  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

mark  addressed  by  his  panegyrist  to  Governor  Stephen 
Hopkins  of  Rhode  Island  may  be  truly  applied  to  the 
colonial  colleges:  “  Much  might  be  said  of  your  Honor’s 
superior  abilities  in  mathematics  and  natural  philoso¬ 
phy,”  but  above  them  all  the  panegyrist  counts  “your 
wise  government  of  a  people.” 

It  was  a  just  and  commanding  instinct  which  prompt¬ 
ed  the  leaders  of  New  York,  when  the  Revolution  ended, 
to  lay  the  broad  foundation  of  a  system  of  education 
for  the  State  which  should  tend  to  cherish  the  intelli¬ 
gent  patriotism  and  public  virtue  which  had  secured 
American  independence.  Education  throughout  the 
State  had  been  paralyzed  by  the  war.  The  schools 
were  everywhere  closed.  The  one  college  was  practi¬ 
cally  extinct.  But,  in  the  year  after  the  negotiation  of 
the  treaty  which  recognized  the  final  separation  of  the 
American  States  from  Great  Britain,  Governor  George 
Clinton  invited  the  legislature  to  consider  the  question 
of  the  revival  and  encouragement  of  seminaries  of  learn¬ 
ing.  He  was  not  a  college-bred  man,  but  he  was  a 
wise  statesman  and  one  of  the  great  governors  of  New 
York;  and  in  the  first  confused  and  dark  hour  that  fol¬ 
lowed  the  war  he  felt,  perhaps  vaguely  and  remotely, 
but  surely,  the  necessity  of  opposing  to  the  money¬ 
making  spirit,  which  was  certain  powerfully  to  assert  its 
supremacy,  the  spirit  of  letters  and  art.  It  is  pleasant 
to  think  of  the  sturdy  governor  in  the  capital  city,  in 
whose  half-charred  and  neglected  streets  the  trees  had 
been  cut  down  and  the  ruined  buildings  had  been  left 
unrestored,  and  from  whose  shores  the  long-occupying 
and  devastating  foreign  army  had  just  marched  away, 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  353 

pleading  that  not  Tyre  and  Sidon,  not  Carthage  and 
Capua,  should  be  the  model  of  the  new  State,  but  Ath¬ 
ens,  rather — 

“  Athens,  the  eye  of  Greece,  mother  of  arts 
And  eloquence.” 

“  Neglect  of  the  education  of  youth,”  were  Clinton’s 
memorable  words  in  his  message  to  the  Legislature  of 
January  21,  1784,  “is  among  the  evils  consequent  on 
war.  Perhaps  there  is  scarce  anything  more  worthy 
your  attention  than  the  revival  and  encouragement  of 
seminaries  of  learning,  and  nothing  by  which  we  can 
more  satisfactorily  express  our  gratitude  to  the  Su¬ 
preme  Being  for  his  past  favors,  since  piety  and  virtue 
are  generally  the  offspring  of  an  enlightened  under¬ 
standing.”  The  Legislature  did  not  shrink  from  de¬ 
claring  the  duty  which  the  governor  urged  of  forming 
the  minds  of  the  youth  of  the  State  to  virtue,  and  from 
this  noble  purpose  of  promoting  public  virtue  and  con¬ 
sequent  public  usefulness  sprang  the  University  of  the 
State  of  New  York. 

With  the  English  practical  genius  and  tendency  to 
adapt  existing  institutions  to  the  actual  situation  rather 
than  to  attempt  a  wholly  new  system  of  education,  the 
first  proposition  was  to  revive  Kings  College  as  the  nu¬ 
cleus  of  a  university,  to  be  composed  of  all  colleges  that 
might  arise  in  the  State,  the  combined  institution  to  be 
governed  and  controlled  by  the  regents  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity  who  were  created  by  the  act.  This  act  practically 
violated  the  charter  of  old  Kings  College  and  seques¬ 
tered  to  the  State  its  property ;  nor  was  it  improved  by 
I —23 


354  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

an  amendment  giving  to  the  clergy  of  each  denomina¬ 
tion  the  right  of  representation  in  the  University  re¬ 
gency.  Practically,  also,  it  committed  all  the  details  of 
the  management  of  the  college  to  the  regents.  Not 
only  were  they  to  employ  the  professors  and  pay  their 
salaries,  and  to  prescribe  a  system  of  discipline  for  the 
students,  but  they  were  to  repair  the  college  buildings, 
and  to  make  the  porter’s  lodge  comfortable,  and  to  pay 
the  messenger  eighteen  pounds  per  annum,  and  to  take 
care  that  the  floor-scrubbers  were  diligent,  and  to  pro¬ 
cure  a  bell  for  the  college,  and  to  direct  the  purchase  of 
four  cords  of  wood  annually,  and  to  defray  the  expense 
thereof  from  the  treasury  of  the  University.  The  min¬ 
utes  of  the  meetings  of  the  regents,  in  the  days  of  this 
simple  service,  show  how  impracticable  the  scheme 
would  become  as  the  University  developed,  but  the  min¬ 
utes  have  other  passages,  also,  which  command  attention. 

On  the  17th  of  May,  1784,  a  hundred  years  ago,  the 
first  candidate  for  admission  to  the  University,  in  its 
only  existing  college,  presented  himself  to  the  Board  of 
Education.  His  name  was  De  Witt  Clinton.  His  uncle 
George,  the  governor,  was  the  Chancellor  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity ;  his  father,  General  James  Clinton,  was  a  regent  of 
the  University;  and  his  son,  George  W.  Clinton,  is  to¬ 
day  the  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University,  honored  and 
beloved.  During  the  century  no  name  is  more  illustri¬ 
ous  in  the  annals  of  New  York  than  that  of  Clinton — 
hereditary  honors  and  hereditary  esteem  springing,  as 
becomes  a  republic,  from  hereditary  merit.  The  next 
two  candidates  who  presented  themselves  for  admission 
were  Philip  and  George  Livingston,  sons  of  Philip  Liv- 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  355 

ingston,  who  came  to  study  where  their  famous  kins¬ 
man,  Robert  R.  Livingston,  the  Chancellor  of  the  State, 
studied;  for  then  the  families  most  conspicuous  in  the 
public  service  of  the  State  and  country  were  associated 
with  the  College  and  the  University,  while  the  Board  of 
Regents  itself  comprised  some  of  the  most  eminent 
men  in  the  State.  But  serious  defects  in  the  law  con¬ 
stantly  disclosed  themselves,  and  especially  it  was  seen 
that  it  would  be  impossible  for  a  single  board  to  have 
charge  of  the  government,  direction,  and  funds  of  many 
colleges  widely  dispersed  through  the  State ;  and  on  the 
31st  of  January,  1787,  a  committee,  of  which  Hamilton, 
Jay,  Livingston,  Mason,  Rogers,  Clarkson,  and  Duane 
were  members,  was  appointed  to  report  upon  the  condi¬ 
tion  and  prospects  of  the  University.  On  the  16th  of 
February  the  committee  submitted  a  report  recom¬ 
mending  fundamental  changes  in  the  organization  of 
the  University.  They  proposed  the  appointment  of  a 
distinct  corporation  for  every  college,  and  the  establish¬ 
ment  of  a  system  of  academies  throughout  the  State, 
and  that  both  colleges  and  academies  should  be  placed 
under  a  wise  and  salutary  subordination  to  the  Board  of 
Regents.  On  the  15th  of  March,  Hamilton  submitted 
a  bill  to  be  laid  before  the  Legislature,  which,  on  the 
13th  of  April,  1787,  by  the  approval  of  the  Council  of 
Revision,  became  a  law,  and  is  the  final  form  of  the  act 
creating  the  University. 

To  the  greatest  constructive  genius  in  our  political 
history,  that  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  New  York  owes 
the  system  of  its  higher  education.  But  it  is  remarka¬ 
ble  that  when  it  was  designed  there  was  but  one  mori- 


356  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

bund  college,  and  no  academy  or  public  school,  in  the 
State.  It  was  through  the  prescience  of  genius  that  Ham¬ 
ilton  knew  that  the  one  would  produce  the  other,  and  six 
years  after  the  passage  of  his  act  the  Board  of  Regents 
recommended  the  establishment  of  primary  schools,  and 
two  years  afterwards  Governor  Clinton  urged  the  estab¬ 
lishment  of  common  schools  throughout  the  State ;  and 
that  vast  and  beneficent  system  of  public  instruction 
began  which  fills  the  air  from  Montauk  to  Niagara,  and 
from  the  Adirondacks  to  Pennsylvania,  with  the  daily 
music  of  the  free-school  bell,  and  covers  imperial  New 
York  with  thousands  of  school-houses,  thronged  with 
more  than  a  million  of  scholars,  maintained  at  an  annual 
cost  of  twelve  millions  of  dollars;  the  nurseries  of  the 
general  education  which  is  the  bulwark  and  the  defence 
of  patriotism,  liberty,  and  law,  and  which,  in  the  spirit 
of  Hamilton’s  provision,  which  abolished  all  religious 
tests  for  the  presidency  or  professorships  in  any  college 
or  academy  under  the  visitation  of  the  regents,  please 
God,  no  partisan  or  sectarian  hand  shall  ever  touch. 

But  while  New  York,  at  the  close  of  the  Revolution, 
was  founding  her  system  of  general  education  under  the 
name  of  the  University  of  New  York,  one  of  the  oldest 
and  most  famous  schools  of  Europe,  the  University 
of  Paris,  which  in  the  thirteenth  century  was  thronged 
with  thirty  thousand  students,  was  overwhelmed  in  the 
maelstrom  of  the  French  Revolution.  In  1793,  the 
year  in  which  the  Board  of  Regents  in  New  York  rec¬ 
ommended  the  establishment  of  primary  schools,  the 
schools  and  the  University  were  suppressed  in  France  ; 
and  in  1795,  the  year  in  which  George  Clinton  impelled 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  357 

the  Legislature  to  make  an  appropriation  in  aid  of  com¬ 
mon  schools  in  New  York,  a  new  school  system  was 
vainly  attempted  in  France.  In  1808,  twenty  years 
after  the  establishment  of  the  University  of  New  York, 
the  Emperor  Napoleon  founded  a  system  of  secondary 
schools,  with  twenty -seven  university  centres  in  the 
chief  towns  of  the  country,  each  with  its  local  govern¬ 
ment,  and  all  together  forming  the  University  of  France, 
which  absorbed  the  entire  system  of  public  instruction. 
No  school  was  allowed  to  exist  without  its  authority, 
no  teacher  could  instruct  except  he  were  a  graduate. 
In  1850,  after  the  revolution  of  1848,  the  exclusive 
privilege  of  the  University  was  abolished,  but  its  gen¬ 
eral  system  remained.  It  is,  in  substance,  the  scheme 
of  Hamilton,  carried  out  by  a  despot  with  immense 
resources  and  under  different  national  circumstances. 
But  Hamilton  had  the  same  imperial  instinct.  His  law 
authorized  the  regents  to  visit  and  inspect  all  the  col¬ 
leges,  academies,  and  schools  which  are  or  may  be  es¬ 
tablished  in  the  State,  to  examine  thoroughly  their 
education  and  discipline,  and  yearly  to  report  their  con¬ 
dition  to  the  Legislature.  His  purpose  was  plain  and 
it  was  characteristic.  Under  the  name  of  University 
he  meant  to  include  the  whole  system  of  education  in 
the  State,  and  to  give  it  the  vitality  and  vigor  which  re¬ 
sult  from  local  government  under  a  strong  central  su¬ 
premacy. 

The  common  -  school  system  which  the  regents  first 
suggested  was  not  committed  to  their  direction.  But 
its  rapid  growth  and  wide  development  showed  how 
closely  adapted  it  was  to  the  wishes  and  tastes  of  the 


358  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

people  of  the  State.  In  fifty  years  from  the  first  act 
which  appropriated  money  for  the  schools  there  were 
nearly  eleven  thousand  school  districts  and  more  than 
six  hundred  thousand  pupils,  and  the  movement  for 
the  freedom  of  the  schools  had  already  begun.  In  the 
same  time  five  colleges  had  been  chartered,  but  none  of 
them  with  affluent  or  even  adequate  revenues,  and  the 
regents  of  the  University  were  devoted  chiefly  to  the 
care  of  the  academies.  There  are  now  twenty-two  col¬ 
leges  in  the  State,  but  the  academies  have  been  the 
chief  care  of  the  regents.  The  design  of  Hamilton,  as 
inferred  from  the  Act  of  1787,  has  never  been  fulfilled. 
He  conceived,  doubtless,  an  institution  which  should  be 
an  active  and  intimate  fraternity  of  all  the  colleges  and 
academies  of  the  State,  as  Oxford  University  is  com¬ 
posed  of  the  colleges  in  the  city  of  Oxford.  In  that 
city — 

“Ye  distant  spires!  Ye  antique  towers!” — 

there  are  twenty-four  colleges,  each  with  an  independent 
corporate  organization.  But  there  is  one  life,  one  pride, 
one  fame  among  them  all.  There  may  be  Magdalen 
and  Brazen  Nose,  Merton  and  Oriel,  Christ-church  and 
All-Souls,  but  they  are  all  Oxford.  It  is  Oxford  which 
is  the  school  of  mediaeval  tradition ;  Oxford  which  is  the 
fond  recollection  of  her  sons  of  any  college ;  Oxford 
which  is  one  of  the  twin  scholastic  glories  of  England. 
The  members  of  every  college  are  familiar  with  those 
of  every  other.  Recruits  from  every  college  pull  for  the 
honor  of  Oxford  against  the  picked  crew  of  the  rival 
university.  One  form  of  faith  unites  them  all,  and  it  is 
Oxford  that  sends  a  member  to  Parliament. 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  359 

Is  this  a  situation  paralleled  in  our  University?  Al¬ 
fred  is  practically  as  remote  from  St.  John’s,  Columbia 
from  Madison,  Ingham  from  Cornell,  as  Dartmouth 
from  Brown  or  Princeton  from  Harvard.  They  are  sep¬ 
arate  in  religious  faith  and  academic  discipline,  and  the 
fact  that  they  are  grouped  together  as  colleges  of  the 
University  of  the  State  gives  them  no  more  essential 
unity  of  academic  life  than  it  gives  them  actual  neigh¬ 
borhood.  Do  the  boys  of  Columbia,  of  Union,  of  Cor¬ 
nell,  of  Hamilton,  of  Rochester,  of  Madison,  of  Syracuse, 
or  Hobart  shout  and  sing  to  the  glory  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity  or  to  that  of  their  own  alma  mater  in  her  own 
chosen  melody?  The  regents  of  the  University,  indeed, 
share  with  the  Legislature  the  authority  to  grant  char¬ 
ters  to  colleges,  and  to  annul  them  whenever  it  shall 
appear  that  the  endowment  has  not  been  legally  paid ; 
and  the  colleges  report  to  the  regents  their  condition 
and  the  disposition  of  their  funds.  But  their  supervi¬ 
sion  is  ceremonial  and  perfunctory,  not  vital  and  author¬ 
itative.  The  Board  of  Regents  has  no  directing  power 
over  the  colleges.  It  cannot  control  their  instruction 
or  discipline,  and  there  is  little  community  of  life  or 
interest  or  association  among  the  colleges  themselves. 
How  many  of  them  have  adopted  even  the  modest  sug¬ 
gestion  of  the  late  Chancellor  Benedict,  that  they  should 
place  a  head-line  on  the  title-pages  of  their  catalogues, 
stating  that  they  were  colleges  of  the  University?  Each 
prescribes  its  own  course  of  study  and  confers  its  own 
degrees,  without  reference  to  the  University.  They  are 
friends,  indeed,  inspired  by  a  generous  emulation.  In 
the  convocation  each  college  bears  its  part  with  ability 


360  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

and  courtesy  and  grace.  But  each  is  conscious  that  it 
is  a  law  to  itself,  that  there  is  no  supreme,  superior  au¬ 
thority  to  which  it  must  defer.  The  convocation  is  the 
arena  of  delightful  and  valuable  discussion.  But  it  is  a 
confederation  of  sovereigns,  not  a  national  union. 

Hamilton,  however,  no  more  designe'd  a  scholastic 
than  a  political  confederation,  and  undoubtedly  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  New  York  is  not  what  he  foresaw.  It  is  but 
a  pleasant  and  unnecessary  fiction  that  it  is  a  kind  of 
American  Oxford.  It  is  a  fiction  because  there  is  no 
vital  resemblance  between  the  institutions.  It  is  pleas¬ 
ant  because  of  the  association  with  the  venerable  Eng¬ 
lish  school.  It  is  unnecessary,  because  the  University 
of  New  York  has  a  distinct  and  dignified  and  beneficent 
character  and  function  of  its  own.  That  function,  dur¬ 
ing  the  century,  has  been  twofold — it  has  been  both  di¬ 
rect  and  representative.  The  foundation  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity  marks  the  establishment  of  a  system  of  education 
extending  from  the  common  schools  to  the  colleges,  and 
in  this  system  it  has  fulfilled  an  illustrious  part  as  the 
official  intermediary  of  the  secondary  or  higher  schools, 
chartering  academies  and  colleges,  receiving  their  re¬ 
ports,  providing  for  the  teaching  of  teachers,  conducting 
a  vast  and  progressive  scheme  of  examinations  to  deter¬ 
mine  a  suitable  grade  of  academic  studies  and  to  adjust 
the  ratio  in  which  the  bounty  of  the  State  shall  be  dis¬ 
tributed,  and,  finally,  responsibly  supervising  the  State 
Library,  now  of  more  than  one  hundred  and  twenty 
thousand  volumes,  and  the  State  Museum  of  Natural 
History,  renowned  for  its  paleontological  treasures.  This 
is  a  service  of  complex  and  infinite  detail,  requiring  in- 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  36 1 

cessant  attention,  the  utmost  promptness  and  accuracy, 
signal  administrative  ability,  and  a  wise  and  comprehen¬ 
sive  direction.  It  is,  therefore,  with  just  pride  that  the 
regents  may  truly  say,  upon  their  first  centenary,  that 
this  ancient  and  most  important  trust  of  the  service  of 
the  State  has  been  discharged  with  a  fidelity,  an  effi¬ 
ciency,  and  an  economy  which  I  will  not  say  are  une¬ 
qualled,  but  which  are  certainly  unsurpassed  in  any 
department  of  the  State  government.  The  annual  ap¬ 
propriation  for  the  regents  is  but  nine  thousand  dollars. 
There  are  no  salaries  paid  except  for  those  of  the  office, 
for  actual  work,  and  every  dollar  of  the  regents’  appro¬ 
priation  stands  for  a  full  hundred  cents’  worth  of  effect¬ 
ive  service.  Modest,  unostentatious,  in  the  best  sense 
conservative,  and  devoted  to  a  lofty  and  ennobling  duty, 
it  is  not  without  reason  that  the  members  of  the  Board 
of  Regents  are  selected  for  their  unpaid  service  with  an 
impressive  and  dignified  ceremonial,  and  that  the  State 
chooses  to  appoint  her  representatives  and  guardians  of 
the  interests  of  higher  education  in  the  commonwealth 
with  the  same  solemnity  with  which  she  selects  her  sen¬ 
ators  in  the  national  legislature.  It  was  with  the  same 
sense  of  fitness  that  some  of  the  regents,  in  days  some¬ 
what  more  formal  than  these,  caused  the  church-bells  to 
be  rung  to  announce  their  entrance  into  a  town  to  visit 
the  academy,  that  the  mind  of  youth  might  be  impressed 
with  a  due  sense  of  the  dignity  of  these  representatives 
of  the  State  interest  in  academic  education.  The  praise 
of  the  efficient  work  that  I  have  described  belongs  main¬ 
ly  to  the  administrative  officers  of  the  Board  at  the  cap¬ 
ital  of  the  State,  of  whom  the  secretary  is  the  executive 


362  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

agent,  and  in  nothing  is  the  State  of  New  York  more 
fortunate  than  in  the  character  and  ability  of  the  eleven 
gentlemen  who,  during  the  century,  have  held  the  office 
of  Secretary  and  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Regents  of  the  University.  Had  every  office  in  the 
State  been  filled  with  the  same  single  regard  to  per¬ 
sonal  character  and  especial  fitness,  the  annals  of  New 
York  would  seem  to  be  those  of  Sir  Thomas  More’s 
well-ordered  Utopia  or  Plato’s  ideal  republic. 

This  is  the  first  of  the  great  services  of  the  Board  of 
Regents  of  the  University,  and  of  this  service  there  has 
been  no  intelligent  denial.  The  poet  Halleck,  indeed, 
in  some  good-natured  verses  long  ago  gently  derided 
the  disproportion  between  the  pomp  of  the  appointment 
of  the  regents  and  the  nature  of  their  duty,  of  which, 
however,  he  knew  little ;  and  there  have  been  sugges¬ 
tions  in  the  Legislature,  and  especially  in  the  Constitu¬ 
tional  Convention  of  1867,  that  the  relations  of  the  State 
to  education  should  be  intrusted  to  a  single  direction, 
and  not  divided,  as  now,  between  the  Board  of  Regents 
and  the  Department  of  Public  Instruction.  But  to  this 
view,  however  correct  it  might  be  in  theory,  as  also 
to  the  other  proposition,  that  the  Department  of  Public 
Instruction  in  the  Common  Schools  should  be  a  bureau 
in  the  University  Board,  or  the  counter  suggestion  that 
the  trust  of  the  University  Board  should  be  transferred 
to  the  Common  School  Department,  it  has  been  always 
strongly  objected  that  nothing  could  be  more  unwise 
than  to  change  a  traditional  system  which  is  at  once  so 
effective  and  so  economical.  This  reply  has  seemed  to 
be  so  reasonable  in  itself  and  the  light  of  more  general 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  363 

and  intimate  knowledge  of  the  services  of  the  Board, 
that  this  ancient  institution  was  never  more  firmly  fixed 
in  the  public  confidence  and  regard  than  it  is  to-day 
upon  the  happy  completion  of  its  centennial  anniversary. 

The  second  great  service  of  the  University  is  not  meas¬ 
urable  like  the  first  by  statistics  and  details.  It  is  a  service 
of  moral  influence,  of  intellectual  elevation.  For  the 
University  of  the  State  of  New  York  is  the  perpetual 
witness  of  the  imperial  commonwealth  to  the  profound 
truth  of  George  Clinton’s  words,  that  “  piety  and  virtue 
are  generally  the  offspring  of  an  enlightened  under¬ 
standing.”  It  is  the  continuing  declaration  of  the  State 
that  the  higher  education  promotes  a  higher  national 
and  local  life,  that  colleges  and  academies  are  not  roots 
of  feebleness,  but  sources  of  strength,  and  that  there  is 
no  more  insidious  enemy  of  free,  popular  institutions 
than  the  man  who  derides  trained  and  educated  intelli¬ 
gence.  If  in  other  countries  what  the  State  honors  the 
people  honor  because  they  are  accustomed  to  be  led  by 
the  government,  in  this  country  what  the  State  honors 
the  people  honor  because  they  are  the  government. 
They  know  that  neither  the  college,  the  academy,  nor 
the  common  school,  the  counting-room,  the  work-shop, 
or  the  caucus,  can  do  more  than  inspire,  develop,  and 
regulate  innate  powers  and  disposition.  But  they  have 
learned — for  their  own  history  teaches  it — that  the  youth 
who  earnestly  desire  the  knowledge  and  the  training 
which  the  college  supplies  are  those  who  become  men 
that  the  country  wants ;  and  they  plainly  see  and 
gladly  own  that  no  community  can  serve  its  own  best 
and  highest  interest  more  effectively  than  by  providing 


364  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

amply  and  worthily  for  the  utmost  possible  develop¬ 
ment  and  discipline  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  powers 
with  which  it  is  endowed. 

This  loyalty  to  the  mere  name  of  the  higher  educa¬ 
tion  is  one  of  the  most  significant  facts  in  our  national 
life.  President  Barnard,  of  Columbia  College,  an  au¬ 
thority  on  the  subject  without  a  superior,  five  years  ago 
estimated  the  whole  number  of  colleges  in  the  country 
to  be  four  hundred  and  twenty-five,  or  one  to  a  little 
more  than  one  hundred  thousand  of  the  population. 
The  whole  number  of  students  he  computed  to  be  one 
to  twenty-five  hundred  of  the  population,  while  half  a 
century  ago  it  was  about  one  student  to  two  thousand 
inhabitants.  Many  of  these  colleges  are  but  enterprises 
of  private  speculation,  many  are  but  little  more  than 
well-meaning  high-schools,  and  very  few  of  them  can  be 
called  in  any  true  sense  universities.  But  they  show 
the  instinctive  loyalty  of  the  people  to  the  idea  of  a  lib¬ 
eral  and  comprehensive  education.  They  attest  the  na¬ 
tional  consciousness  that  the  word  “college”  stands  for  a 
great  and  noble  public  influence.  Take  from  the  coun¬ 
try  the  educated  force,  in  all  its  degrees,  which  these 
institutions  represent ;  reduce  the  standard  of  education 
to  reading,  writing,  and  the  elementary  rules  of  arithme¬ 
tic ;  banish  the  literature  of  England,  Germany,  France, 
Italy,  of  Greece  and  Rome,  their  philosophy,  their  art, 
the  story  of  their  political  and  social  development,  and 
the  record  of  the  progressive  march  of  liberty  through 
different  ages  and  in  widely  varying  institutions ;  seal 
up  again  the  marvellous  arcana  of  science  with  which 
modern  genius  has  so  bountifully  blessed  the  world  ; 


SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  365 

assume  that  the  common  school,  fundamental  and  be¬ 
neficent  and  indispensable  as  it  is,  furnishes  all  that  the 
American  citizen  needs  to  know ;  and  implant,  if  you 
can,  in  the  American  mind  profound  distrust  of  the 
counsels  of  highly  educated  men  —  would  you  have 
blessed  or  cursed  the  land  ?  Would  you  have  given  the 
national  mind  higher  moral  elevation  or  greater  prac¬ 
tical  power?  Would  the  national  character  be  purer, 
stronger,  better?  It  is  the  inestimable  blessing  of  this 
annual  commencement  season  that  it  summons  us  from 
the  absorbing  and  unsparing  competitions  of  trade,  from 
the  furious  passions  of  political  controversy,  from  the 
heat  and  fret  and  toil  of  daily  life,  up,  up,  to  the  mount 
of  vision,  to  meditate  the  divine  decrees,  and  to  behold 
clearly  the  truth  that  it  is  not  riches  nor  empire  nor 
enterprise,  nor  any  form  whatever  of  material  prosper¬ 
ity,  but  unbending  fidelity  to  the  moral  law  written 
upon  the  consciousness  of  every  citizen,  which  is  the 
sure  foundation  of  great  and  enduring  States,  and  which, 
while  it  remains  unshaken  and  supreme,  will  forever  re¬ 
new  the  American  republic  as  the  celestial  order  of  nat¬ 
ure  renews  the  glory  of  midsummer. 

Mr.  Chancellor,  the  men  of  a  hundred  years  ago,  from 
whose  hands  we  have  received  the  great  trust  which  we 
administer,  long  since  have  passed  away,  and  our  de¬ 
scending  footsteps  follow  theirs.  The  exigencies  of 
those  times,  not  less  than  of  ours,  demanded  wisdom, 
abounding  knowledge,  devoted  patriotism,  moral  energy, 
and  from  the  desire  and  purpose  to  provide  and  perpet¬ 
uate  these  primary  social  forces  this  institution  sprang. 
So,  likewise,  those  who  follow  us,  and  who,  a  hundred 


366  SPIRIT  AND  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

years  hence,  as  now  we  recall  our  predecessors,  shall 
recall  us — let  us  hope  not  altogether  as  unfaithful — will 
find  that  the  same  spirit  and  influence  and  power  which 
moulded  and  marshalled  the  controlling  American  emi¬ 
gration,  which  conducted  the  prodigious  colonial  de¬ 
bate  with  Great  Britain,  which  fostered  in  the  Ameri¬ 
can  heart  the  demand,  and  secured  from  the  British 
crown  the  acknowledgment,  of  national  independence, 
which  raised  the  States  from  the  shifting  sands  of  con¬ 
federation  to  the  eternal  rock  of  national  union,  and 
which  in  subsequent  days,  dealing  with  tremendous  na¬ 
tional  controversies  as  they  arose,  gave  the  land  peace 
with  freedom,  are  the  forces  which  alone  can  cope  suc¬ 
cessfully  with  the  vast  questions  that  are  arising  be¬ 
fore  us — the  humane  and  supreme  forces  of  intellectual 
training,  of  copious  knowledge,  and  of  inflexible  moral¬ 
ity,  which  are  represented  by  the  University  of  the  State 
of  New  York. 


XV 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 

AN  ORATION  DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNVEILING  OF  THE  PILGRIM 
STATUE  BY  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  SOCIETY,  IN  THE 
CITY  OF  NEW  YORK,  AT  CENTRAL 
PARK,  JUNE  6,  1885 


The  heroic  bronze  statue  of  the  Pilgrim  was  unveiled  and 
presented  to  the  city  of  New  York  on  Saturday  afternoon,  June 
6,  1885. 

It  is  placed  in  Central  Park  upon  a  gentle  eminence,  at  the 
junction  of  the  Grand  Drive  with  the  entrance  from  Seventy- 
second  Street,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Park.  The  statue  faces 
the  west.  It  is  nine  feet  high,  and  stands  upon  a  pedestal  of 
Quincy  granite,  three  feet  high,  which  was  designed  by  Mr.  Rich¬ 
ard  Hunt. 

The  figure  represents  a  Puritan  of  the  early  part  of  the  seven¬ 
teenth  century,  dressed  in  the  severe  garb  of  his  sect,  standing 
erect  and  looking  into  the  distance  with  earnest,  searching 
gaze.  One  arm  falls  at  his  side ;  the  other  rests  on  the  muzzle 
of  his  old  flint-lock  musket.  He  wears  the  tall,  broad-brimmed 
Puritan  hat.  The  statue  was  modelled  by  Mr.  J.  Q.  A.  Ward. 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


To-day  and  here  we,  who  are  children  of  New  Eng¬ 
land,  have  but  one  thought,  the  Puritan ;  one  pride  and 
joy,  the  Puritan  story.  The  transcendent  story,  in  its 
larger  relations,  involving  the  whole  modern  develop¬ 
ment  and  diffusion  and  organization  of  English  liberty, 
touched  into  romance  by  the  glowing  imagination,  is 
proudly  repeated  by  every  successive  generation  of  the 
English-speaking  race,  and  lives  and  breathes  and  burns 
in  legend  and  in  song.  In  its  greatest  incident,  the  Pil¬ 
grim  emigration  to  America,  it  is  a  story  of  achievement 
unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  the  world  for  the  majesty 
of  its  purpose  and  the  poverty  of  its  means,  the  weak¬ 
ness  of  the  beginning  and  the  grandeur  of  the  result. 
Contemplating  the  unnoted  and  hasty  flight  by  night 
of  a  few  Englishmen  from  the  lonely  coast  of  Lincoln¬ 
shire  to  Holland — the  peaceful  life  in  exile — the  perilous 
ocean-voyage  afterwards,  lest  in  that  friendly  land  the 
fervor  of  the  true  faith  should  fail — the  frail  settlement 
at  Plymouth,  a  shred  of  the  most  intense  and  tenacious 
life  in  Europe  floating  over  the  sea  and  clinging  to  the 
bleak  edge  of  America,  harassed  by  Indians,  beset  by 
beasts,  by  disease,  by  exposure,  by  death  in  every  form, 
I.-24 


37° 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


beyond  civilization  and  succor,  beyond  the  knowledge 
or  interest  of  mankind,  a  thin  thread  of  the  Old  World 
by  which  incalculable  destinies  of  the  New  World 
hung,  yet  taking  such  vital  hold  that  it  swiftly  over¬ 
spreads  and  dominates  a  continent  covered  to-day  with 
a  population  more  industrious,  more  intelligent,  happier, 
man  for  man,  than  any  people  upon  which  the  sun  ever 
shone — contemplating  this  spectacle,  our  exulting  hearts 
break  into  the  language  which  was  most  familiar  to  the 
lips  of  the  Pilgrims — a  paean  of  triumph,  a  proud  proph¬ 
ecy  accomplished — “  The  desert  shall  rejoice  and  blos¬ 
som  as  the  rose.”  “A  little  one  shall  become  a  thou¬ 
sand,  and  a  small  one  a  strong  nation.” 

Here,  indeed,  we  are  far  from  the  scenes  most  familiar 
to  the  eyes  of  the  Pilgrims ;  we  are  surrounded  by  other 
traditions  and  solicited  by  other  memories.  But  under 
these  radiant  heavens,  amid  this  abounding  beauty  of 
summer,  our  hearts  go  backward  to  a  winter  day.  The 
roaring  city  sinks  to  a  silent  wilderness.  These  flower- 
fringed  lawns  become  a  barren  shore.  This  animated 
throng,  changed  to  a  grave-faced  group  in  sombre  garb, 
scans  wistfully  the  solitary  waste.  The  contrast  is  com¬ 
plete.  All,  all  is  changed.  But  no,  not  all.  Unchanged 
as  the  eternal  sky  above  us  is  the  moral  law  which  they 
revered.  Unfailing  as  the  sure  succession  of  the  seasons 
is  its  operation  in  the  affairs  of  men.  All  the  prosper¬ 
ity,  the  power,  the  permanence  of  the  republic,  more 
than  ever  the  pride  of  its  children,  more  than  ever  the 
hope  of  mankind,  rest  upon  obedience  to  that  un¬ 
changed  and  unchangeable  law.  The  essence  of  the 
Fathers’  faith  is  still  the  elixir  of  the  children’s  life  ; 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


371 


and  should  that  faith  decay,  should  the  consciousness 
of  a  divine  energy  underlying  human  society,  mani¬ 
fested  in  just  and  equal  laws,  and  humanely  ordering 
individual  relations,  disappear,  the  murmur  of  the  ocean 
rising  and  falling  upon  Plymouth  Rock  would  be  the 
endless  lament  of  nature  over  the  baffled  hopes  of  - 
man. 

Undoubtedly  New  England,  in  all  its  aspects  of  sce¬ 
nery  and  people,  in  its  history  and  achievement,  its  en¬ 
ergy,  intelligence,  sagacity,  industry,  and  thrift  —  New 
England  of  the  church,  the  school,  and  the  town-meet¬ 
ing,  is  still  the  great,  peculiar  monument  of  the  Puritan 
in  America.  But  where  beyond  its  borders  more  fitly 
than  here,  upon  this  ground  settled  by  children  of  the 
hospitable  country  which  was  the  first  refuge  of  the 
Puritan,  could  a  memorial  statue  stand  ?  In  England 
“  they  had  heard  that  in  the  Low  Countries  was  free¬ 
dom  of  worship  for  all  men,”  and  thither  the  Pilgrims 
first  fled ;  and  when  from  that  pleasant  haven  they  re¬ 
solved  to  cross  the  sea,  they  brought  with  them  from 
Holland  the  free  church  and  the  free  school,  and  uncon¬ 
sciously,  in  their  principles  and  the  practice  of  their  re¬ 
ligious  organization,  the  free  State.  They  were  urged 
by  a  trading  company  in  Amsterdam  to  settle  under 
Dutch  protection  here  in  New  Netherlands.  But  yet, 
although  they  courteously  declined,  when  after  sixty-, 
four  days’  tossing  upon  the  ocean  they  saw  the  deso¬ 
late  sands  of  Cape  Cod,  they  resolved  to  stand  towards 
the  south,  “  to  find  some  place  about  the  Hudson  River 
for  their  habitation.”  They  turned  again,  however,  to 
the  bleaker  shore.  The  Fathers  did  not  come.  But 


372 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


long  afterwards  the  children  came,  and  are  continually 
coming,  to  renew  the  ancient  friendship. 

Well  may  the  statue  of  the  Puritan  stand  here,  for  in 
the  mighty  miracle  of  the  scene  around  us  his  hand,  too, 
has  wrought.  Here  upon  this  teeming  island  the  chil¬ 
dren  of  New  Netherlands  and  of  New  England  have 
together  built  the  metropolis  of  the  continent,  the  far- 
shining  monument  of  their  united  energy,  enterprise, 
and  skill.  Together  at  the  head  of  yonder  river,  richer 
in  romance  and  legend  than  any  other  American  stream, 
the  Puritan  and  the  Hollander  with  their  associate  colo¬ 
nists  meditated  the  American  Union.  Together  in  this 
city,  in  the  Stamp-Act  Congress,  they  defied  the  power 
of  Great  Britain  ;  and  once  more,  upon  the  Hudson,  the 
Puritan  and  the  Cavalier  and  the  Hollander,  born  again 
as  Americans,  resistlessly  enveloped  and  overwhelmed 
the  army  of  Burgoyne,  and  in  his  surrender  beheld  the 
end  of  British  authority  in  the  colonies.  Plere,  then, 
shall  the  statue  stand,  imperishable  memorial  of  imper¬ 
ishable  friendship,  blending  the  heroic  memories  of  two 
worlds  and  two  epochs ; — the  soldier  of  the  Nether¬ 
lands,  the  soldier  of  Old  England,  and  the  soldier  of 
New  England,  at  different  times  and  under  different 
conditions,  but  with  the  same  unconquerable  enthusi¬ 
asm  and  courage,  battling  for  liberty. 

The  spirit  which  is  personified  in  this  statue  had  never 
a  completer  expression  than  in  the  Puritan,  but  it  is  far 
older  than  he.  Beyond  Plymouth  and  Leyden,  beyond 
the  manor-house  of  Scrooby  and  the  dim  shore  of  the 
Humber,  before  Wickliffe  and  the  German  reformers, 
on  heaven-kissing  pastures  of  the  everlasting  Alps,  on 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


373 


the  bright  shores  of  the  Medicean  Arno,  in  the  Roman 
forum,  in  the  golden  day  of  Athens  of  the  violet  crown, 
wherever  the  human  heart  has  beat  for  liberty  and 
the  human  consciousness  has  vaguely  quickened  with 
its  divine  birthright,  wherever  the  instinct  of  freedom 
challenges  authority  and  demands  the  reason  no  less 
than  the  poetry  of  tradition — there,  there,  whatever  the 
age,  whatever  the  country,  the  man,  the  costume,  there 
is  the  invincible  spirit  of  the  Puritan. 

But  the  vague  and  general  aspiration  for  liberty  took 
the  distinctive  form  of  historical  Puritanism  only  with 
the  Reformation  in  the  sixteenth  century.  P'orerunners, 
indeed,  harbingers  of  the  general  awakening,  there  had 
been  long  before  Luther,  scattered  voices  as  of  early- 
wakening  birds  in  the  summer  night  preluding  the  full 
choir  of  day.  The  cry  of  all,  the  universal  cry  that  rang 
across  Europe  from  WicklifTe  to  Savonarola,  from  John 
Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague  to  Zwingli  and  Erasmus, 
from  the  Alpine  glaciers  to  the  fiords  of  Norway,  and 
which  broke  at  last  like  a  thunder-clap  from  the  lips  of 
Martin  Luther,  and  shook  the  ancient  ecclesiastical  sys¬ 
tem  to  its  foundations,  was  the  demand  for  reform.  To 
reform  in  the  language  of  that  great  century  meant  to 
purify,  and  the  Reformation  in  its  fundamental  idea  was 
identical  with  Purification,  with  Puritanism. 

But  the  spiritual  usurpation  intolerable  in  a  pope  was 
insufferable  in  a  king.  Henry  VIII.  would  have  made 
England  a  newer  Rome ;  and  Edmund  Burke’s  stately 
phrase,  studied  from  the  aspect  of  a  milder  time,  was 
justified  in  all  its  terrible  significance  in  Elizabethan 
England.  The  English  hierarchy  raised  its  mitred  front 


374 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


in  Court  and  Parliament,  demanding  unquestioning  ac¬ 
quiescence  and  submission.  But  the  conviction  that 
had  challenged  Rome  did  not  quail ;  and  the  spirit 
of  hostility  to  the  English  as  to  the  Roman  dogma  of 
spiritual  supremacy,  the  spirit  which  asserted  and  de¬ 
fended  that  religious,  political,  and  civil  liberty  which  is 
the  great  boon  of  England  to  the  world — a  boon  and 
a  glory  beyond  that  of  Shakespeare,  of  Bacon,  of  Ra¬ 
leigh,  of  Gresham,  of  Newton,  of  Watts,  beyond  that 
of  all  her  lofty  literature,  her  endless  enterprise,  her 
inventive  genius,  her  material  prosperity,  her  boundless 
empire — was  Puritanism. 

If  ever  England  had  an  heroic  age,  it  was  that  which 
began  by  supporting  the  Tudor  in  his  rupture  with 
Rome,  then  asserted  his  own  logical  principle  against 
his  daughter’s  claim,  and  after  a  tremendous  contest 
ended  by  seeing  the  last  of  the  Stuart  kings  exiled  for¬ 
ever,  an  impotent  pensioner  of  France.  This  was  the 
age  of  Puritan  England,  the  England  in  which  liberty 
finally  organized  itself  in  constitutional  forms  so  flexi¬ 
ble  and  enduring  that  for  nearly  two  centuries  the  in¬ 
ternal  peace  of  the  kingdom,  however  threatened  and 
alarmed,  has  never  been  broken.  The  modern  England 
that  we  know  is  the  England  of  the  Puritan  enlarged, 
liberalized,  graced,  adorned  —  the  England  which,  de¬ 
spite  all  estrangement  and  jealousy  and  misunderstand¬ 
ing,  despite  the  alienation  of  the  Revolution  and  of  the 
second  war,  the  buzz  of  cockney  gnats,  and  official  in¬ 
difference  in  our  fierce  civil  conflict,  is  still  the  mother- 
country  of  our  distinctive  America,  the  mother  of  our 
language  and  its  literature,  of  our  characteristic  national 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


375 


impulse  and  of  the  great  muniments  of  our  individual 
liberty.  To  what  land  upon  the  globe  beyond  his  own 
shall  the  countryman  of  Washington  turn  with  pride 
and  enthusiasm  and  sympathy,  if  not  to  the  land  of 
John  Selden  and  John  Hampden  and  John  Milton? 
and  what  realm  shall  touch  so  deeply  the  heart  of  the 
fellow-citizen  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  that  whose  soil, 
and  long  before  our  own,  was  too  sacred  for  the  foot¬ 
step  of  a  slave  ?  She  is  not  the  mother  of  dead  em¬ 
pires,  but  of  the  greatest  political  descendant  that  ever 
the  world  knew.  Our  own  Revolution  was  the  defence 
of  England  against  herself.  She  has  sins  enough  to 
answer  for.  But  while  Greece  gave  us  art  and  Rome 
gave  us  law,  in  the  very  blood  that  beats  in  our  hearts 
and  throbs  along  our  veins  England  gave  us  liberty. 

We  must  not  think  of  Puritanism  as  mere  acrid 
defiance  and  sanctimonious  sectarianism,  nor  of  the 
Puritans  as  a  band  of  ignorant  and  half-crazy  zealots. 
Yet  mainly  from  the  vindictive  caricature  of  his  ene¬ 
mies  is  derived  the  popular  conception  of  the  Puri¬ 
tan.  He  was  travestied  by  Ben  Jonson’s  Tribulation 
Wholesome  and  Zeal-of-the-land  Busy.  The  Puritan 
of  whom  Macaulay,  following  Hume,  said  that  he 
hated  bear-baiting,  not  because  it  gave  pain  to  the 
bear,  but  because  it  gave  pleasure  to  the  spectator, 
was  the  Puritan  of  the  plays  of  Charles  II.,  when 
Shakespeare  had  been  replaced  by  Aphra  Behn,  and 
the  object  of  the  acted  drama  was  to  stimulate  a 
passion  palled  by  excess  and  a  taste  brutalized  by 
debauchery.  The  literature  that  ridiculed  the  Puri¬ 
tan  sprang  from  the  same  impotent  hate  which  scat- 


376 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


tered  the  ashes  of  Wickliffe  upon  the  Severn  and  dis¬ 
interred  the  dead  Cromwell  and  hung  the  body  in 
chains  at  Tyburn,  insulting  the  dust  of  the  hero  who, 
living,  had  made  England  great,  and  to  whose  policy, 
after  the  effeminate  and  treacherous  Stuart  reaction, 
England  returned.  The  Cavaliers  mocked  the  Puritan, 
as  Burgoyne  and  the  idle  British  officers  in  Boston 
burlesqued  the  Yankee  patriot.  They  had  their  laugh, 
their  jest,  their  gibe.  But  it  is  not  to  the  rollicking 
masqueraders  of  the  British  barracks,  to  the  scarlet 
soldiers  of  the  crown,  that  we  look  to  see  the  living 
picture  of  our  Washington  and  Hamilton,  our  Jay  and 
Adams,  who  plucked  from  the  crown  its  brightest  gem. 
It  is  not  the  futile  ribaldry  of  fops  and  fribbles,  of 
courtiers  and  courtesans,  of  religious  slavery  and  po¬ 
litical  despotism,  whose  fatal  spell  over  England  the 
Puritan  had  broken  forever,  which  can  truly  portray 
the  Puritan. 

When  Elizabeth  died,  the  country  gentlemen,  the 
great  traders  in  the  towns,  the  sturdy,  steadfast  mid¬ 
dle  class,  the  class  from  which  English  character  and 
strength  have  sprung,  were  chiefly  Puritans.  Puritans 
taught  in  the  universities  and  sat  on  the  bench  of 
bishops.  They  were  peers  in  Parliament,  they  were 
ambassadors  and  secretaries  of  State.  Hutchinson, 
graced  with  every  accomplishment  of  the  English  gen¬ 
tleman,  was  a  Puritan.  Sir  Henry  Vane,  by  whose 
side  sat  justice,  was  a  Puritan.  John  Hampden,  purest 
of  patriots,  was  a  Puritan.  John  Pym,  most  strenuous  of 
parliamentary  leaders,  was  a  Puritan.  A  fanatic  ?  Yes, 
in  the  high  sense  of  unchangeable  fidelity  to  a  sublime 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


377 


idea  ;  a  fanatic  like  Columbus,  sure  of  a  western  pas¬ 
sage  to  India  over  a  mysterious  ocean  which  no  mari¬ 
ner  had  ever  sailed ;  a  fanatic  like  Galileo,  who  marked 
the  courses  of  the  stars  and  saw,  despite  the  jargon  of 
authority,  that  still  the  earth  moved ;  a  fanatic  like 
Joseph  Warren,  whom  the  glory  of  patriotism  trans¬ 
figured  upon  Bunker  Hill.  This  was  the  fanatic  who 
read  the  Bible  to  the  English  people  and  quickened 
English  life  with  the  fire  of  the  primeval  faith ;  who 
smote  the  Spaniard,  and  swept  the  pirates  from  the 
sea,  and  rode  with  Cromwell  and  his  Ironsides,  praising 
God  ;  who  to  the  utmost  shores  of  the  Mediterranean, 
and  in  the  shuddering  valleys  of  Piedmont,  to  every 
religious  oppressor  and  foe  of  England,  made  the  name 
of  England  terrible.  This  was  the  fanatic,  soft  as  sun¬ 
shine  in  the  young  Milton,  blasting  in  Cromwell  as  the 
thunder-bolt,  in  Endicott  austere  as  Calvin,  in  Roger 
Williams  benign  as  Melanchthon,  in  John  Robinson 
foreseeing  more  truth  to  break  forth  from  God’s  word. 
In  all  history  do  you  see  a  nobler  figure?  Forth  from 
the  morning  of  Greece  come,  Leonidas,  with  your 
bravest  of  the  brave ;  in  the  rapt  city  plead,  Demos¬ 
thenes,  your  country’s  cause ;  pluck,  Gracchus,  from 
aristocratic  Rome  its  crown  ;  speak,  Cicero,  your  magic 
word  ;  lift,  Cato,  your  admonishing  hand ;  and  you, 
patriots  of  modern  Europe,  be  all  gratefully  remem¬ 
bered  ;  but  where  in  the  earlier  ages,  in  the  later  day, 
in  lands  remote  or  near,  shall  we  find  loftier  self-sac¬ 
rifice,  more  unstained  devotion  to  worthier  ends,  issu¬ 
ing  in  happier  results  to  the  highest  interests  of  man, 
than  in  the  English  Puritan  ? 


37s 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


He  apprehended  his  own  principle,  indeed,  often 
blindly,  often  narrowly,  never  in  its  utmost  ampli¬ 
tude  and  splendor.  The  historic  Puritan  was  a  man 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  not  of  the  nineteenth.  He 
saw  through  a  glass  darkly,  but  he  saw.  The  acorn 
is  not  yet  the  oak,  the  well-spring  is  not  yet  the  river. 
But  as  the  harvest  is  folded  in  the  seed,  so  the  largest 
freedom  political  and  religious  —  liberty,  not  tolera¬ 
tion,  not  permission,  not  endurance :  in  yonder  heaven 
Cassiopeia  does  not  tolerate  Arcturus,  nor  the  clus¬ 
tered  Pleiades  permit  Orion  to  shine — the  right  of  ab¬ 
solute  individual  liberty,  subject  only  to  the  equal  right 
of  others,  is  the  ripened  fruit  of  the  Puritan  principle. 

It  is  this  fact,  none  the  less  majestic  because  he  was 
unconscious  of  it,  which  invests  the  emigration  of  the 
Puritan  to  this  country  with  a  dignity  and  grandeur 
that  belong  to  no  other  colonization.  In  unfurling 
his  sail  for  that  momentous  voyage,  he  was  impelled 
by  no  passion  of  discovery,  no  greed  of  trade,  no  pur¬ 
pose  of  conquest.  He  was  the  most  practical,  the 
least  romantic,  of  men,  but  he  was  allured  by  no  vision 
of  worldly  success.  The  winds  that  blew  the  May¬ 
flower  over  the  sea  were  not  more  truly  airs  from 
heaven  than  the  moral  impulse  and  moral  heroism 
which  inspired  her  voyage.  Sebastian  Cabot,  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  Francis  Drake,  Frobisher,  Cortez,  and 
Ponce  de  Leon,  Champlain,  bearing  southward  from 
the  St.  Lawrence  the  lilies  of  France,  Henry  Hudson 
pressing  northward  from  Sandy  Hook  with  the  flag 
of  Holland,  sought  mines  of  gold,  a  profitable  trade, 
the  fountain  of  youth,  colonial  empire,  the  northwest- 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


379 


ern  passage,  a  shorter  channel  to  Cathay.  But  the 
Puritan  obeyed  solely  the  highest  of  all  human  mo¬ 
tives.  He  dared  all  that  men  have  ever  dared,  seek¬ 
ing  only  freedom  to  worship  God.  Had  the  story  of 
the  Puritan  ended  with  the  landing  upon  Plymouth 
Rock,  had  the  rigors  of  that  first  winter  which  swept 
away  half  of  the  Pilgrims  obliterated  every  trace  of 
the  settlement,  had  the  unnoted  Mayflower  sunk  at 
sea,  still  the  Puritan  story  would  have  been  one  of 
the  noblest  in  the  annals  of  the  human  race.  But  it 
was  happily  developed  into  larger  results,  and  the 
Puritan,  changed  with  the  changing  time,  adding  sweet¬ 
ness  to  strength,  and  a  broader  humanity  to  moral 
conviction  and  religious  earnestness,  was  reserved  for 
a  grander  destiny. 

The  Puritan  came  to  America  seeking  freedom  to 
worship  God.  He  meant  only  freedom  to  worship  God 
in  his  own  way,  not  in  the  Quaker  way,  not  in  the 
Baptist  way,  not  in  the  Church  of  England  way.  But 
the  seed  that  he  brought  was  immortal.  His  purpose 
was  to  feed  with  it  his  own  barn-yard  fowl,  but  it 
quickened  into  an  illimitable  forest,  covering  a  conti¬ 
nent  with  grateful  shade,  the  home  of  every  bird  that 
flies.  Freedom  to  worship  God  is  universal  freedom, 
a  free  State  as  well  as  a  free  Church,  and  that  was  the 
inexorable  but  unconscious  logic  of  Puritanism.  Hold¬ 
ing  that  the  true  rule  of  religious  faith  and  worship 
was  written  in  the  Bible,  and  that  every  man  must 
read  and  judge  for  himself,  the  Puritan  conceived  the 
Church  as  a  body  of  independent  seekers  and  inter¬ 
preters  of  the  truth,  dispensing  with  priests  and  priestly 


38° 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


orders  and  functions  ;  organizing  itself  and  calling  no 
man  master.  But  this  sense  of  equality  before  God 
and  towards  each  other  in  the  religious  congregation, 
affecting  and  adjusting  the  highest  and  most  enduring 
of  all  human  relations,  that  of  man  to  his  Maker,  ap¬ 
plied  itself  instinctively  to  the  relation  of  man  to  man 
in  human  society,  and  thus  popular  government  flowed 
out  of  the  Reformation,  and  the  Republic  became  the 
natural  political  expression  of  Puritanism. 

See,  also,  how  the  course  and  circumstance  of  the 
Puritan  story  had  confirmed  this  tendency.  The  ear¬ 
liest  English  reformers,  flying  from  the  fierce  reaction 
of  Mary,  sought  freedom  in  the  immemorial  abode  of 
freedom,  Switzerland,  whose  singing  waterfalls  and  ranz 
des  vaches  echoing  among  peaks  of  eternal  ice  and  shad¬ 
owy  valleys  of  gentleness  and  repose,  murmured  ever 
the  story  of  Morgarten  and  Sempach,  the  oath  of  the 
men  of  Riitli,  the  daring  of  William  Tell,  the  greater 
revolt  of  Zwingli.  There  was  Geneva,  the  stern  repub¬ 
lic  of  the  Reformation,  and  every  Alpine  canton  was  a 
republican  community  lifted  high  for  all  men  to  see, 
a  light  set  upon  a  hill.  How  beautiful  upon  the  moun¬ 
tains  were  the  heralds  of  glad  tidings !  This  vision  of 
the  free  State  lingered  in  the  Puritan  mind.  It  passed 
in  tradition  from  sire  to  son,  and  the  dwellers  in  Amster¬ 
dam  and  Leyden,  maintaining  a  republican  Church,  un¬ 
consciously  became  that  republican  State  whose  living 
beauty  their  fathers  had  beheld,  and  which  they  saw 
glorified,  dimly  and  afar,  in  the  old  Alpine  vision. 

Banished,  moreover,  by  the  pitiless  English  persecu¬ 
tion,  the  Puritans,  exiles  and  poor  in  a  foreign  land,  a 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT  38 1 

colony  in  Holland  before  they  were  a  colony  in  Amer¬ 
ica,  were  compelled  to  self-government,  to  a  common 
sympathy  and  support,  to  bearing  one  another’s  bur¬ 
dens  ;  and  so,  by  the  stern  experience  of  actual  life, 
they  were  trained  in  the  virtues  most  essential  for  the 
fulfilment  of  their  august  but  unimagined  destiny.  The 
patriots  of  the  Continental  Congress  seemed  to  Lord 
Chatham  imposing  beyond  the  law-givers  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  The  Constitutional  Convention  a  hundred 
years  ago  was  an  assembly  so  wise  that  its  accomplished 
work  is  reverently  received  by  continuous  generations, 
as  the  children  of  Israel  received  the  tables  of  the  law 
which  Moses  brought  down  from  the  Holy  Mount. 
Happy,  thrice  happy  the  people  which  to  such  scenes 
in  their  history  can  add  the  simple  grandeur  of  the 
spectacle  in  the  cabin  of  the  Mayflower,  the  Puritans 
signing  the  compact  which  was  but  the  formal  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  government  that  voluntarily  they  had  estab¬ 
lished — the  scene  which  makes  Plymouth  Rock  a  step¬ 
ping-stone  from  the  freedom  of  the  solitary  Alps  and 
the  disputed  liberties  of  England  to  the  fully  devel¬ 
oped  constitutional  and  well-ordered  republic  of  the 
United  States. 

The  history  of  colonial  New  England  and  of  New 
England  in  the  Union  is  the  story  of  the  influence  of 
the  Puritan  in  America.  It  is  a  theme  too  alluring 
to  neglect,  too  vast  to  be  attempted  now.  But  even 
in  passing  I  must  not  urge  a  claim  too  broad.  Even 
in  the  pride  of  this  hour,  and  with  the  consent  of  your 
approving  conviction  and  sympathy,  I  must  not  pro¬ 
claim  that  the  republic,  like  a  conquering  goddess, 


382 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


sprang  from  the  head  fully  armed,  and  that  the  head 
was  New  England.  Yet  the  imperial  commonwealth 
of  which  we  are  citizens,  and  every  sister  State,  will 
agree  that  in  the  two  great  periods  of  our  history,  the 
colonial  epoch  and  that  of  the  national  union,  the  in¬ 
fluence  of  New  England  has  not  been  the  least  of  all 
influences  in  the  formative  and  achieving  processes 
towards  the  great  and  common  result.  The  fondly 
cherished  tradition  of  Hadley  may  be  doubted  and 
disproved,  but  like  the  legends  of  the  old  mythology 
it  will  live  on,  glowing  and  palpitating  with  essential 
truth.  It  may  be  that  we  must  surrender  the  story  of 
the  villagers  upon  the  Connecticut  sorely  beset  by  Ind¬ 
ians  at  mid-day  and  about  to  yield  ;  perhaps  no  act¬ 
ual  venerable  form  appears  with  flowing  hair — like 
that  white  plume  of  conquering  Navarre — and  with 
martial  mien  and  voice  of  command  rallies  the  de¬ 
spairing  band,  cheering  them  on  to  victory,  then  van¬ 
ishing  in  air.  The  heroic  legend  may  be  a  fable,  but 
none  the  less  it  is  the  Puritan  who  marches  in  the  van 
of  our  characteristic  history,  it  is  the  subtle  and  pene¬ 
trating  influence  of  New  England  which  has  been  felt 
in  every  part  of  our  national  life,  as  the  cool  wind 
blowing  from  her  pine-clad  mountains  breathes  a  lof¬ 
tier  inspiration,  a  health  more  vigorous,  a  fresher  im¬ 
pulse,  upon  her  own  green  valleys  and  happy  fields. 

See  how  she  has  diffused  her  population.  Like  the 
old  statues  of  the  Danube  and  the  Nile,  figures  reclin¬ 
ing  upon  a  reedy  shore  and  from  exhaustless  urns  pour¬ 
ing  water  which  flows  abroad  in  a  thousand  streams  of 
benediction,  so  has  New  England  sent  forth  her  chil- 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


383 


dren.  Following  the  sun  westward,  across  the  Hudson 
and  the  Mohawk  and  the  Susquehanna,  over  the  Alle- 
ghanies  into  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  over  the  Sier¬ 
ra  Nevada  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  the  endless  procession 
from  New  England  has  moved  for  a  century,  bearing 
everywhere  Puritan  principle,  Puritan  enterprise,  and 
Puritan  thrift.  A  hundred  years  ago  New-Englanders 
passed  beyond  the  calm  Dutch  Arcadia  upon  the  Mo¬ 
hawk,  and  striking  into  the  primeval  forest  of  the  an¬ 
cient  Iroquois  domain,  began  the  settlement  of  central 
New  York.  A  little  later,  upon  the  Genesee,  settlers 
from  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  met,  but  the  pioneers 
from  New  England  took  the  firmest  hold  and  left  the 
deepest  and  most  permanent  impression.  A  hundred 
years  ago  there  was  no  white  settlement  in  Ohio.  But 
in  1789  the  seed  of  Ohio  was  carried  from  Massachu¬ 
setts,  and  from  the  loins  of  the  great  Eastern  com¬ 
monwealth  sprang  the  first  great  commonwealth  of  the 
West.  Early  in  the  century  a  score  of  settlements  be¬ 
yond  the  Alleghanies  bore  the  name  of  Salem,  the  spot 
where  first  in  America  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  set  foot ;  and  in  the  dawn  of  the  Revolution  the 
hunters  in  the  remote  valley  of  the  Elkhorn,  hearing 
the  news  of  the  19th  of  April,  called  their  camp  Lex¬ 
ington,  and  thus,  in  the  response  of  their  heroic  sym¬ 
pathy,  the  Puritan  of  New  England  named  the  early 
capital  of  Kentucky.  But  happier  still,  while  yet  the 
great  region  of  the  Northwest  lay  in  primeval  wilder¬ 
ness,  awaiting  the  creative  touch  that  should  lift  it  into 
civilization,  it  was  the  Puritan  instinct  which  fulfilled 
the  aspiration  of  Jefferson,  and  by  the  Ordinance  of 


384 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


1787  consecrated  the  Northwest  to  freedom.  Thus  in  the 
civilization  of  the  country  has  New  England  been  a  pio¬ 
neer,  and  so  deeply  upon  American  life  and  institutions 
has  the  genius  of  New  England  impressed  itself  that, 
in  the  great  civil  war,  the  peculiar  name  of  the  New- 
Englander,  the  Yankee,  became  the  distinguishing  title 
of  the  soldier  of  the  Union ;  the  national  cause  was  the 
Yankee  cause;  and  a  son  of  the  West,  born  in  Kentucky 
and  a  citizen  of  Illinois,  who  had  never  seen  New  Eng¬ 
land  twice  in  his  life,  became  the  chief  representative 
Yankee,  and  with  his  hand,  strong  with  the  will  of  the 
people,  the  Puritan  principle  of  liberty  and  equal  rights 
broke  the  chains  of  a  race.  New  England  characteris¬ 
tics  have  become  national  qualities.  The  blood  of  New 
England  flows  with  energizing,  modifying,  progressive 
power  in  the  veins  of  every  State ;  and  the  undaunted 
spirit  of  the  Puritan,  sic  semper  tyrannis ,  animates  the 
continent  from  sea  to  sea. 

I  have  mentioned  the  two  cardinal  periods  of  our  his¬ 
tory,  the  colonial  epoch  and  the  epoch  of  the  Union. 
In  all  exclusively  material  aspects  our  colonial  annals 
are  perhaps  singularly  barren  of  the  interest  which 
makes  history  attractive.  Straggling  and  desultory 
Indian  warfare,  the  transformation  of  wild  forest-land 
to  fertile  fields,  marches  to  the  frontier  to  repel  the 
French,  the  establishment  of  peaceful  industries,  the 
opening  of  prosperous  trade,  a  vast  contest  with  nat¬ 
ure,  and  incessant  devotion  to  material  circumstance 
and  condition ;  but  with  no  soft  and  humanizing  light 
of  native  literature  shining  upon  the  hard  life,  no  re¬ 
fining  art,  no  great  controversies  of  statesmanship  in 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT  385 

which  the  genius  of  the  English-speaking  race  delights — 
these,  with  a  rigid  and  sombre  theology  overshadowing 
all,  compose  the  colonial  story.  Yet  the  colonial  epoch 
was  the  heroic  period  of  our  annals.  For,  beneath  all 
these  earnest  and  engrossing  activities  of  colonial  life, 
its  unwasting  central  fire  was  the  sensitive  jealousy  of 
the  constant  encroachment  of  the  home  government, 
against  which  the  Puritan  instinct  and  the  Puritan 
practice  furnished  the  impregnable  defence.  The  free 
church,  the  free  school,  the  town-meeting,  institutions 
of  a  community  which  not  only  loves  liberty,  but  com¬ 
prehends  the  conditions  under  which  liberty  ceases  to 
be  merely  the  aspiration  of  hope,  and  becomes  an  act¬ 
ual  possession  and  an  organized  power  —  these  were 
the  practical  schools  of  American  independence,  and 
these  were  the  distinctive  institutions  of  New  England. 
Without  the  training  of  such  institutions  successful  co¬ 
lonial  resistance  would  have  been  impossible,  but  with¬ 
out  New  England  this  training  would  not  have  been. 

Nay,  more:  I  can  conceive  that  New  England,  plant¬ 
ed  by  a  hundred  men  who  were  selected  by  the 
struggle  for  freedom  of  two  hundred  years — New  Eng¬ 
land,  of  a  homogeneous  population  and  common  relig¬ 
ious  faith,  cherishing  the  proud  tradition  of  her  origin, 
and  during  the  long  virtual  isolation  from  Europe  of  a 
hundred  and  forty  years  successfully  governing  herself, 
might,  even  alone,  with  sublime  temerity  and  without 
the  co-operation  of  other  colonies,  have  defied  the  un¬ 
just  mother-country,  and  with  the  unappalled  devotion 
of  the  Swiss  cantons  which  the  early  Puritans  knew, 
and  with  all  the  instinct  of  a  true  national  life,  have 
I. — 25 


386 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


sought  national  independence.  This  I  can  conceive. 
But  the  preliminary  movement,  the  nascent  sentiment 
of  independence  deepening  into  conviction  and  ripening 
into  revolution,  the  assured  consciousness  of  ability  to 
cope  with  every  circumstance  and  to  command  every 
event,  that  supreme,  sovereign,  absolute  absorption  and 
purpose  which  interpret  the  truth  that  “  one  with  God 
is  a  majority”  —  all  this  in  colonial  America  without 
New  England  I  cannot,  at  that  time,  conceive.  I  do 
not  say,  of  course,  that  except  for  New  England  Amer¬ 
ica  would  have  remained  always  colonial  and  subject 
to  Great  Britain.  Not  that  at  all;  but  only  this,  that 
for  every  great  movement  of  change  and  progress,  of 
research  and  discovery,  of  protest  and  revolution,  there 
must  be  a  pioneer.  Who  supposes  that  except  for  Colum¬ 
bus  the  western  continent  would  have  remained  hidden 
always  and  unknown  to  the  eastern  world  ?  But  who 
can  doubt  that,  except  for  the  perpetual  brooding  vi¬ 
sion  which  filled  the  soul  of  the  Genoese  and  bound  him 
fast  to  the  mysterious  quest,  the  awed  Indians  of  San 
Salvador  would  not  have  seen  the  forerunner  of  civil¬ 
ization  on  that  October  morning  four  centuries  ago, 
and  that  except  for  Columbus  America  would  not 
then  have  been  discovered  ?  So,  in  the  colonial  epoch, 
doubtless  the  same  general  feeling  prevailed  through  all 
the  colonies,  the  same  great  principles  were  cherished, 
the  same  motives  stirred  the  united  colonial  heart.  The 
cry  was  not  Virginia  nor  Massachusetts,  it  was  conti¬ 
nental  America.  But,  none  the  less,  on  the  transplant¬ 
ed  sapling  of  the  English  oak  that  drew  its  sustenance 
from  the  common  American  soil,  the  one  bud  most 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


387 


sensitive,  most  swelling,  from  which  the  vigorous  new 
growth  was  sure  to  spring,  was  Puritan  New  England. 

In  our  second  historical  epoch,  that  of  the  Union,  the 
essential  controversy,  under  whatever  plea  and  disguise, 
was  that  of  the  fundamental  principle  of  free  govern¬ 
ment  with  a  social,  political,  and  industrial  system  to 
which  that  principle  was  absolutely  hostile.  Tariffs, 
banks,  fiscal  schemes,  internal  policy,  foreign  policy, 
State  sovereignty,  the  limitations  of  national  authority 
— these  were  the  counters  with  which  the  momentous 
game  was  played.  I  speak  to  those  in  whose  memories 
still  echo  the  thunders  and  flash  the  lightnings  of  that 
awful  tempest  in  the  forum  and  the  field.  I  accuse  no 
section  of  the  country.  I  arraign  no  party.  I  denounce 
no  man.  I  speak  of  forces  greater  than  men,  forces 
deep  as  human  nature,  forces  that  make  and  unmake 
nations,  that  threw  Hampden  with  the  Parliament  and 
Falkland  with  the  king.  It  was  a  controversy  whose 
first  menace  was  heard  in  the  first  Congress,  and  which 
swelled  constantly  louder  and  more  threatening  to  the 
end.  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand,  said 
the  beloved  patriot  who  was  to  be  the  national  martyr 
of  the  strife.  The  conflict  is  irrepressible,  answered  the 
statesman  who  was  to  share  with  him  the  conduct  of 
the  country  through  the  storm.  Who  could  doubt  that 
it  was  irrepressible  who  knew  the  American  heart ;  but 
who  could  doubt  also  that  it  would  be  tremendous, 
appalling,  who  knew  the  resources  of  the  foe  ?  Ameri¬ 
can  slavery  was  so  strong  in  tradition,  in  sentiment, 
in  commercial  interest,  in  political  power,  in  consti¬ 
tutional  theory,  in  the  timidity  of  trade,  in  the  pas- 


388 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


sion  for  union,  in  dogged  and  unreasoning  sectional 
hatred  ;  it  so  pleaded  a  religious  sanction,  the  patri¬ 
archal  relation,  even  a  certain  romance  of  childlike  de¬ 
pendence  and  the  extension  of  Christian  grace  to  the 
heathen,  that,  like  an  unassailable  fortress  upon  heights 
inaccessible,  it  frowned  in  gloomy  sovereignty  over  a 
subject  land. 

There  was  but  one  force  which  could  oppose  the  vast 
and  accumulated  power  of  slavery  in  this  country,  and 
that  was  the  force  which,  in  other  years  and  lands, 
had  withstood  the  consuming  terrors  of  the  hierarchy 
and  the  crushing  despotism  of  the  crown  —  the  con¬ 
science  of  the  people ;  a  moral  conviction  so  undaunt¬ 
ed  and  uncompromising  that  resistance  could  not  ex¬ 
haust  it,  nor  suffering  nor  wounds  nor  death  appall. 
The  great  service  of  the  Puritan  in  the  second  epoch 
was  the  appeal  to  this  conscience  which  prepared  it  for 
the  conflict.  Its  key-note  was  the  immortal  declaration 
of  Garrison,  in  which  the  trumpet-voice  of  the  spirit 
that  has  made  New  England  rang  out  once  more,  clear 
and  unmistakable,  awaking  at  last  the  reluctant  echoes 
of  the  continent,  “  I  am  in  earnest ;  I  will  not  equiv¬ 
ocate,  I  will  not  excuse,  I  will  not  retreat  a  single  inch, 
and  I  will  be  heard.”  There  were  other  voices,  indeed, 
voices  everywhere,  harmonious  and  historic  voices, 
swelling  the  chorus ;  but  chiefly  from  New  England 
came  the  moral  appeal,  penetrating  and  persistent,  dis¬ 
daining  political  argument  and  party  alliance — an  ap¬ 
peal  which,  with  all  the  ancient  fervor  of  the  Puritan 
faith,  spurning  every  friendly  remonstrance,  every  plea 
of  prudence,  every  prophecy  of  disaster,  and  every  form 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


38  9 


of  obloquy  and  malignant  enmity,  urged  upon  every 
citizen  the  personal  guilt  of  complicity  with  national 
wrong,  and  by  its  divine  logic  inexorably  forced  parties 
to  the  true  issue,  moulding  our  politics  anew;  and  when 
debate  ended,  the  same  spirit,  irradiating  the  embattled 
cause  of  the  Union,  of  the  national  pride,  of  the  honor 
of  the  flag,  with  the  glory  of  the  old  and  eternal  Puritan 
principle  of  human  liberty  and  equal  rights,  threw  its 
veil  of  light  over  our  shame  and  our  sorrow  and  our 
long  sectional  alienation. 

In  the  great  drama  of  our  history  this  was  the  dis¬ 
tinctive  part  of  New  England  in  the  separate  colonies 
and  in  the  later  Union.  Under  another  sky,  in  a  differ¬ 
ent  time,  and  amid  changed  conditions,  it  was  the  ser¬ 
vice  of  the  same  spirit  that  challenged  the  Vatican, 
shook  the  crowned  majesty  of  the  Tudor  and  the  Stu¬ 
art,  and  made  straight  in  the  desert  a  highway  for  re¬ 
publican  liberty — the  spirit  of  the  Lincolnshire  fugitive, 
of  the  exile  in  Holland,  of  the  pilgrim  of  the  Mayflower 
and  his  brethren  of  the  Arbella ;  of  the  English  Puri¬ 
tan,  expanded,  developed,  matured  into  the  American 
patriot.  It  is  a  spirit  to  be  reverenced  and  cherisTied, 
and  perpetuated,  if  it  may  be,  in  adequate  and  noble 
human  form  and  so  made  permanently  visible  to  men. 
We  know,  indeed,  that  the  builders  of  memorial  statues 
measure  themselves;  that  they  raise  in  enduring  marble 
and  in  bronze  imperishable  and  relentless  censors  of  the 
lives  of  those  who  build  them,  and  that  no  man  shall 
stand  unrebuked  in  the  sculptured  presence  of  departed 
greatness.  But  the  power  that  rebukes  inspires ;  and 
this  statue  shall  stand  not  only  as  the  memorial  of  our 


THE  PURITAN  SPIRIT 


39° 

reverence  for  the  Fathers,  but  as  the  pledge  of  the  chil¬ 
dren’s  fidelity  to  their  fathers’  principle  and  their  fa¬ 
thers’  aim. 

Here  in  this  sylvan  seclusion,  amid  the  sunshine  and 
the  singing  of  birds,  we  raise  the  statue  of  the  Puritan 
Pilgrim,  that  in  this  changeless  form  the  long  proces¬ 
sion  of  the  generations  which  shall  follow  us  may  see 
what  manner  of  man  he  was  to  the  outward  eye  whom 
history  and  tradition  have  so  often  flouted  and  tra¬ 
duced,  but  who  walked  undismayed  the  solitary  heights 
of  duty  and  of  service  to  mankind.  Here  let  him 
stand,  the  soldier  of  a  free  Church  calmly  defying  the 
hierarchy,  the  builder  of  a  free  State  serenely  confront¬ 
ing  the  continent  which  he  shall  settle  and  subdue. 
The  unspeaking  lips  shall  chide  our  unworthiness,  the 
lofty  mien  exalt  our  littleness,  the  unblenching  eye  in¬ 
vigorate  our  weakness ;  and  the  whole  poised  and  firmly 
planted  form  reveal  the  unconquerable  moral  energy — 
the  master-force  of  American  civilization.  So  stood  the 
sentinel  on  Sabbath  morning,  guarding  the  plain  house 
of  prayer  while  wife  and  child  and  neighbor  worshipped 
within.  So  mused  the  Pilgrim  in  the  rapt  sunset  hour 
on  the  New  England  shore,  his  soul  caught  up  into  the 
dazzling  vision  of  the  future,  beholding  the  glory  of  the 
nation  that  should  be.  And  so  may  that  nation  stand 
forever  and  forever,  the  mighty  guardian  of  human  lib¬ 
erty,  of  God-like  justice,  of  Christ-like  brotherhood. 


THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  RACE 


A  SPEECH  DELIVERED  AT  THE  ANNUAL  DINNER  OF  THE 
CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE  OF  THE  STATE  OF 
NEW  YORK,  NOVEMBER  1 5,  1887 


The  so-called  annual  “banquet”  of  the  New  York  Chamber 
of  Commerce  on  November  15,  1887,  was  distinguished  by  the 
presence  of  the  Rt.  Hon.  Joseph  Chamberlain,  M.P.,  Special 
Commissioner  of  the  British  Government  on  the  Joint  Commis¬ 
sion  for  the  Settlement  of  the  Fisheries  Difficulties. 

After  Mr.  Chamberlain  and  others  had  spoken,  Mr.  Curtis  was 
called  on  to  speak  in  response  to  the  toast,  “  The  English- 
speaking  race :  The  founders  of  commonwealths,  pioneers  of 
progress;  stubborn  defenders  of  liberty;  may  they  ever  work 
together  for  the  world’s  welfare.” 


THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  RACE 


After  a  few  introductory  words  Mr.  Curtis  said : — 
The  sentiment  which  you  have  read,  Mr.  Chairman, 
describes  in  a  few  comprehensive  words  the  historic 
characteristics  of  the  English-speaking  race.  That  it 
is  the  founder  of  commonwealths  let  the  miracle  of 
empire  which  it  has  wrought  upon  the  Western  Con¬ 
tinent  attest.  It  has  advanced  from  the  seaboard  with 
the  rifle  and  the  axe,  the  plough  and  the  shuttle,  the 
teapot  and  the  Bible,  a  rocking-chair  and  a  spelling- 
book,  a  bath-tub  and  a  free  constitution,  sweeping 
across  the  Alleghanies,  overspreading  the  prairies,  and 
pushing  on  until  the  dash  of  the  Atlantic  in  its  ears 
dies  in  the  murmur  of  the  Pacific ;  and  as,  whenever 
the  goddess  of  the  old  mythology  touched  the  earth, 
flowers  and  fruits  answered  her  footfall,  so  in  the  long 
trail  of  this  advancing  race  it  has  left  clusters  of  happy 
States,  teeming  with  a  population,  man  by  man,  more 
intelligent  and  prosperous  than  ever  before  the  sun 
shone  upon,  and  each  remoter  camp  of  that  triumphal 
march  is  but  a  further  outpost  of  English-speaking 
civilization.  [ Applause .]  That  it  is  the  pioneer  of 
progress  is  written  all  over  the  globe  to  the  utmost 


394 


THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  RACE 


isles  of  the  sea,  and  upon  every  page  of  the  history  of 
civil  and  religious  and  commercial  freedom.  [Cheers.] 
Every  factory  that  hums  with  marvellous  machinery, 
every  railway  and  steamer,  every  telegraph  and  tele¬ 
phone,  the  changed  systems  of  agriculture,  the  end¬ 
less  and  universal  throb  and  heat  of  magical  inven¬ 
tion,  are,  in  their  larger  part,  but  the  expression  of  the 
genius  of  the  race  that  with  Watts  drew  from  the 
airiest  vapor  the  mightiest  of  motive  powers;  with 
Franklin  leashed  the  lightning,  and  with  Morse  out- 
fabled  fairy  lore.  The  race  that  extorted  from  kings 
the  charter  of  its  political  rights  has  won  from  the 
princes  and  powers  of  the  air,  the  earth,  and  the  wa¬ 
ter,  the  secret  of  supreme  dominion,  the  illimitable 
franchise  of  beneficent  material  progress.  [. Applause .] 
That  it  is  the  stubborn  defender  of  liberty,  let  our  own 
annals  answer,  for  America  sprang  from  the  defence 
of  English  liberty  in  English  colonies,  by  men  of  Eng¬ 
lish  blood,  who  still  proudly  speak  the  English  lan¬ 
guage,  cherish  English  traditions,  and  share  of  right, 
and  as  their  own,  the  ancient  glory  of  England.  [Ap¬ 
plause^] 

No  English-speaking  people  could,  if  it  would,  es¬ 
cape  its  distinctive  name,  and  since  Greece  and  Judea 
no  name  is  more  worthy  of  honor  among  men.  We 
Americans  may  flout  England  a  hundred  times.  We 
may  oppose  her  opinions  with  reason,  we  may  think 
her  views  unsound,  her  policy  unwise.  But  from  what 
country  would  the  most  American  of  Americans  prefer 
to  have  derived  the  characteristic  impulse  of  Ameri¬ 
can  development  and  civilization  rather  than  England  ? 


THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  RACE 


395 


What  language  would  we  rather  speak  than  the  tongue 
of  Shakespeare  and  Hampden,  of  the  Pilgrims  and 
King  James's  version?  What  yachts,  as  a  tribute 
to  ourselves  upon  their  own  element,  would  we  rather 
outsail  than  English  yachts  ?  [ Laughter .]  In  what 

national  life,  modes  of  thought,  standards  and  esti¬ 
mates  of  character  and  achievement  do  we  find  our 
own  so  perfectly  reflected  as  in  the  English  House  of 
Commons,  in  English  counting-rooms  and  workshops, 
and  in  English  homes?  {Applause .] 

No  doubt  the  original  stock  has  been  essentially 
modified  in  the  younger  branch.  The  American,  as  he 
looks  across  the  sea  to  what  Hawthorne  happily  called 
“  Our  Old  Home,”  and  contemplates  himself,  is  dis¬ 
posed  to  murmur,  “  Out  of  the  eater  shall  come  forth 
meat,  and  out  of  strength  shall  come  forth  sweetness.” 
He  left  England  a  Puritan  iconoclast ;  he  has  devel¬ 
oped,  in  Church  and  State,  into  a  constitutional  re¬ 
former.  He  came  hither  a  knotted  club  ;  he  has  been 
transformed  into  a  Damascus  blade.  He  seized  and 
tamed  the  continent  with  a  hand  of  iron ;  he  civilizes 
and  controls  it  with  a  touch  of  velvet.  No  music  so 
sweet  to  his  ear  as  the  sound  of  the  common-school 
bell ;  no  principle  so  dear  to  his  heart  as  the  equal 
rights  of  all  men  ;  no  vision  so  entrancing  to  his  hope 
as  those  rights  universally  secured.  {Appfause.\  This 
is  the  Yankee,  this  is  the  younger  branch  ;  but  a  branch 
of  no  base  or  brittle  fibre,  but  of  the  tough  old  Eng¬ 
lish  oak,  which  has  weathered  triumphantly  the  tem¬ 
pests  of  a  thousand  years.  It  is  a  noble  contention 
whether  the  younger  or  the  elder  branch  has  further 


396 


THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  RACE 


advanced  the  frontiers  of  liberty.  But  it  is  unques¬ 
tionable  that  liberty,  as  we  understand  it  on  both  sides 
of  the  sea,  is  an  English  tradition.  We  inherit  it,  we 
possess  it,  we  transmit  it,  under  forms  peculiar  to  the 
English  race.  It  is,  as  Mr.  Chamberlain  has  said,  lib¬ 
erty  under  law.  It  is  liberty,  not  license;  civilization, 
not  barbarism  ;  it  is  liberty  clad  in  the  celestial  robe 
of  law,  because  law  is  the  only  authoritative  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  will  of  the  people.  Representative  gov¬ 
ernment,  trial  by  jury,  the  habeas  corpus,  freedom  of 
speech  and  of  the  press — why,  Mr.  Chairman,  they  are 
the  family  heirlooms,  the  family  diamonds,  and  they 
go  wherever  in  the  wide  world  go  the  family  name 
and  language  and  tradition.  [Applause.] 

Sir,  with  all  my  heart,  and,  I  am  sure,  with  the 
hearty  assent  of  this  great  and  representative  com¬ 
pany,  I  respond  to  the  final  aspiration  of  your  toast : 
“  May  this  great  family,  in  all  its  branches,  ever  work 
together  for  the  world’s  welfare.”  Certainly  its  divi¬ 
sion  and  alienation  would  be  the  world’s  misfortune. 
That  England  and  America  have  had  sharp  and  angry 
quarrels  is  undeniable.  Party  spirit  in  this  country, 
recalling  an  old  animosity,  has  always  stigmatized  with 
an  English  name  whatever  it  opposed.  Every  differ¬ 
ence,  every  misunderstanding  with  England  has  been 
ignobly  turned  to  party  account.  But  the  two  great 
branches  of  this  common  race  have  come  of  age,  and 
wherever  they  may  encounter  a  serious  difficulty  which 
must  be  accommodated,  they  have  but  to  thrust  dema¬ 
gogues  aside,  to  recall  the  sublime  words  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  “  With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for 


THE  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  RACE 


397 


all  ”  ;  and  in  that  spirit,  and  in  the  spirit  of  the  mission 
represented  in  this  country  by  the  gentlemen  upon  my 
right  and  my  left,  I  make  bold  to  say  to  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain,  in  your  name,  there  can  be  no  misunderstanding 
which  may  not  be  honorably  and  happily  adjusted. 
[Cheers.']  For  to  our  race,  gentlemen  of  both  coun¬ 
tries,  is  committed  not  only  the  defence,  but  the  illus¬ 
tration,  of  constitutional  liberty.  The  question  is,  not 
what  we  did  a  century  ago  or  in  the  beginning  of  this 
century,  with  the  lights  that  shone  around  us ;  but  what 
is  our  duty  to-day,  in  the  light  which  is  given  to  us  of 
popular  government  under  the  republican  form  in  this 
country  and  the  parliamentary  form  in  England.  If 
a  sensitive  public  conscience,  if  general  intelligence, 
should  not  avail  to  secure  us  from  unnatural  conflict, 
then  Liberty  will  not  be  justified  of  her  children,  and 
the  glory  of  the  English-speaking  race  will  decline.  I 
do  not  believe  it.  I  believe  that  it  is  constantly  in¬ 
creasing,  and  that  the  colossal  power  which  slumbers 
in  the  arms  of  a  kindred  people  will  henceforth  be  in¬ 
voked,  not  to  drive  them  further  asunder,  but  to  weld 
them  more  indissolubly  together  in  the  defence  of  lib¬ 
erty  under  law.  [Prolonged  cheers .] 


. 


XVII 

THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE  COM¬ 
PLETION  OF  THE  TWENTY-FIFTH  ACADEMIC  YEAR 
OF  VASSAR  COLLEGE,  POUGHKEEPSIE,  N.  Y., 

JUNE  12,  1890 


. 


/ 


■ 


■ 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


On  a  summer  day  like  this,  nearly  fifty  years  ago,  the 
anniversary  of  West  Indian  emancipation,  Mr.  Emer¬ 
son  described  that  event  as  “  a  day  of  reason,  of  the 
clear  light,  of  that  which  makes  us  better  than  a  flock 
of  birds  or  beasts.”  It  is  another  day  like  that,  a  day 
of  another  emancipation,  of  a  distinct  step  of  higher 
civilization,  that  we  are  assembled  to  commemorate. 
For  events  of  historical  importance  the  imagination 
craves  a  fitting  scene,  and  here  the  imagination  is  sat¬ 
isfied.  We  stand  upon  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  and 
the  Hudson  is  our  most  historic  river.  Its  charm  is 
blended  of  natural  beauty,  of  patriotic  story,  of  liter¬ 
ature  and  legend.  It  was  the  channel  by  which  Hen¬ 
drick  Hudson  sought  a  shorter  route  to  Cathay.  It 
was  the  war-path  of  France  and  Great  Britain  contend¬ 
ing  for  continental  dominion.  Its  possession  was  the 
tactical  object  of  the  war  of  our  independence.  Upon 
its  shores  the  controversy  culminated  in  the  decisive 
surrender  of  British  arms  and  the  open  French  alli¬ 
ance.  Upon  these  shores,  also,  Washington  put  aside 
the  crown,  and  at  the  mouth  of  the  Hudson  he  saw 
retiring  England  furl  her  flag  and  sail  away.  At  King- 
I.— 26 


402 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


ston  on  the  Hudson  sat  the  convention  that  adopted 
the  State  Constitution.  At  Fishkill  the  commemora¬ 
tive  Cincinnati  was  organized.  Here  in  Poughkeepsie, 
beneath  the  watchful  eyes  of  George  Clinton,  like  the 
contending  gods  in  the  Homeric  legend,  Alexander 
Hamilton  and  Melanchthon  Smith  strove  in  the  great 
debate  upon  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
here  New  York  consented  to  the  Constitution,  and 
once  more,  upon  the  Hudson,  the  career  of  Washing¬ 
ton  reached  its  crowning  glory  as  he  entered  upon  the 
Presidency  of  the  United  States. 

What  memorable  events  have  consecrated  this  river 
and  these  shores !  What  voices  have  thrilled  the  air  of 
this  prolific  and  prosperous  valley  !  What  noble  fig¬ 
ures  have  peopled  this  majestic  scene !  But  its  story 
does  not  end  with  the  Revolution.  With  the  golden 
age  of  peace  the  vast  manorial  estates  of  the  Hudson 
gave  to  the  river  a  singular  social  distinction,  and  its 
shores  were  the  renowned  seat  of  magnificent  hospital¬ 
ity.  Towns  and  cities  clustering  beside  it  marked  the 
advance  of  American  prosperity.  Following  the  Half- 
Moon  of  Hendrick  Hudson,  after  just  two  hundred 
years,  the  Clermont  of  Robert  Fulton  moved  sailless 
against  the  stream,  and  commerce  and  human  inter¬ 
course  were  emancipated  from  dependence  upon  the 
coy  and  fitful  wind.  A  little  later,  with  simple  repub¬ 
lican  pomp  and  amid  the  happy  truce  of  parties,  the 
water  of  Lake  Erie  was  borne  down  the  Hudson  to  the 
sea,  and  a  smooth  and  unobstructed  way  to  the  mar¬ 
kets  of  the  world  was  opened  to  the  mighty  Northwest. 
But  still  the  beneficent  river  lacked  one  leaf  in  its  chap- 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


403 


let.  Its  stately  course  through  storied  scenes,  its  shores 
teeming  with  prosperous  content,  its  landscape  of  undu¬ 
lating  and  endless  beauty  from  the  Palisades  to  the 
Catskill  and  the  softer  rural  reaches  beyond,  yet  want¬ 
ed  the  spell  which  holds  the  traveller’s  foot  at  every 
step  in  the  lesser  landscape  of  other  lands,  the  spell  of 
the  genius  which  lifts  them  into  literature,  and  so  gives 
to  every  cultivated  mind  in  the  world  an  indefeasible 
estate  in  the  local  landscape. 

In  a  large  sense  the  experiment  of  American  inde¬ 
pendence  was  associated  with  this  river.  British  domin¬ 
ion  fell  and  the  republic  was  formally  inaugurated  upon 
its  banks.  Upon  the  Hudson,  Fulton’s  genius  and  Clin¬ 
ton’s  enterprise  had  given  the  quickening  impulse  to 
American  invention  and  industry,  and,  at  last,  American 
creative  literature  was  born  under  its  spell.  The  shore 
at  Tarrytown,  stretching  backward  to  Sleepy  Hollow, 
the  broad  water  of  the  Tappan  Zee,  the  airy  heights  of 
the  summer  Catskill,  were  at  last  suffused  with  the  rosy 
light  of  literature  by  the  kindly  genius  of  Washington 
Irving.  Burns  and  Scott  have  made  their  Scotland  the 
Scotland  of  all  the  world.  Every  hill  and  stream  and 
bird  and  flower  of  the  beloved  land  is  reflected  indi¬ 
vidually  and  fondly  in  Scottish  tale  and  song.  The 
Scotchman  with  his  deep  and  strong  national  senti¬ 
ment,  a  feeling  which  survives  untouched  by  all  acts 
of  political  union  with  the  British  empire,  murmurs 
wherever  he  goes  the  legendary  music  of  the  Ayr  and 
the  Doon,  of  the  laverock  and  the  mavis,  the  Scottish 
landscape  and  the  Scottish  legend. 

It  is  curious  that  our  literature  should  have  been 


404 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


born  of  a  reaction  of  sentiment.  It  was  all  sermon 
until  Bryant’s  “  Thanatopsis,”  and  Bryant’s  muse  was 
essentially  Puritanic.  But  as  the  boy  Irving  used  to 
escape  from  the  severity  of  religious  discipline  by  drop¬ 
ping  out  of  the  window  and  stealing  to  the  play,  so  in 
his  gentle  genius  our  nascent  literature  at  last  escaped 
the  sermon  and  came  laughing  into  life.  Not  less  strik¬ 
ing  is  the  fact  that  the  first  distinct  creation  of  that  lit¬ 
erature  should  have  been  a  characteristically  un-Ameri¬ 
can  figure.  Irving’s  genius  was  what  in  the  old  English 
phrase  would  have  been  called  sauntering.  It  cast  the 
glamour  of  idlesse  over  our  sharp,  positive,  and  busy 
American  life.  Rip  Van  Winkle,  the  indolent  and 
kindly  vagabond,  asserts  the  charm  of  day-dream  and 
loitering  against  all  the  engrossing  hurry  of  lucrative 
activity.  At  first  he  and  the  grotesque  Knickerbock¬ 
er  heroes  were  solitary  figures  in  our  letters.  But  so 
strong  is  the  magic  of  the  Hudson  that  Rip  Van  Win¬ 
kle,  on  the  western  shore,  was  soon  joined  by  Cooper’s 
Spy  upon  the  eastern,  and  presently  by  Leatherstocking, 
until  long  since  Rip  is  but  one  of  a  goodly  company. 
Yet  still  he  holds  his  place.  Another  literary  spirit, 
a  freer  impulse,  greater  genius,  and  figures  more  com¬ 
manding  and  elaborate,  appear.  But  while  one  lurid 
Scarlet  Letter  spells  Puritan,  and  the  keen  laughter  of 
Hosea  Biglow  nails  fast  the  counterfeit  American,  still 
Rip  Van  Winkle  lounges  idly  by,  and  the  vagabond  of 
the  Hudson  is  an  unwasting  figure  of  the  imagination,  the 
earliest,  most  constant,  gentlest  satirist  of  American  life. 

These  are  but  glimpses  of  the  associations  of  the 
Hudson  River.  But  they  show  how  peculiarly  identi- 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  405 

fled  it  is  with  our  history  and  literature,  with  our  patri¬ 
otism  and  national  life.  It  is  surely  a  singular  felicity 
of  fortune  that  it  should  be  also  as  intimately  associ¬ 
ated  with  the  great  step  of  advancing  civilization  which 
we  celebrate  to-day,  and  that  upon  the  shores  of  the 
Hudson  should  be  founded  the  first  amply  endowed 
and  adequately  organized  college  for  women.  Like 
all  important  steps  of  social  progress,  the  rise  of  such 
an  institution  is  a  development,  not  a  sudden  creation. 
Growth,  not  miracle,  is  the  law  of  life.  Even  St.  John’s 
day,  the  longest  day  of  the  year,  is  not  a  sudden  burst 
of  splendor;  it  brightens  gradually  from  the  faintest 
flush  of  dawn.  The  rose-bush  does  not  break  into  ful¬ 
ness  of  bloom  on  some  happy  morning  in  June,  but 
with  the  warmth  of  early  April  the  buds  begin  to  swell 
and  the  green  begins  to  deepen,  and  gradually,  like  a 
queen  leisurely  robing  for  her  coronation,  tint  is  added 
to  tint,  beauty  to  beauty,  until  it  stands  in  the  sover- 
eign  glory  of  perfect  blossom.  So  our  political  Con¬ 
stitution  was  not,  as  is  sometimes  said,  an  inspiration ; 
it  was  an  application.  From  the  ancient  customs  of 
Swiss  cantons,  from  the  meadow  of  Runnymede,  from 
the  Grand  Remonstrance  and  the  Petition  of  Right,  in 
steady  Anglo-Saxon  succession  and  with  accumulating 
force,  the  principles  of  our  Constitution  were  derived. 
No  one  of  them  was  new  in  our  system,  but  the  appli¬ 
cation  of  them  at  once  to  the  States  and  to  the  Union 
of  the  States,  this  was  unprecedented,  this  was  the  sun¬ 
rise  in  which  all  the  earlier  brightening  rays  of  light 
culminated  in  day. 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  we  are 


406  the  higher  education  of  women 

celebrating  an  event  which  was  unheralded  and  had 
been  neither  attempted  nor  foreseen.  The  greatness 
of  the  occasion  and  the  fame  of  Mr.  Vassar  ask  no  such 
impossible  tribute.  Every  important  movement,  we 
are  apt  to  say,  is  at  last  one  man.  It  is  true  that  great 
events  in  history  are  symbolized  by  certain  names,  as 
Columbus  and  the  discovery  of  America,  Sam  Adams 
and  American  Independence,  Samuel  Romilly  and  the 
reform  of  the  penal  laws,  Dr.  Franklin  and  the  light¬ 
ning-conductor,  Garrison  and  the  abolition  of  slavery, 
Henry  Bergh  and  the  compassionate  care  of  domestic 
animals.  But  a  leader  is  strong  by  the  strength  of 
others.  He  is  sustained  by  what  is  called  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  and  he  follows,  like  a  keen  Indian  guide  in  a 
company  of  white  men,  the  trail  which  forerunners 
have  made.  Columbus  lived  in  an  age  of  discovery. 
He  heard  more  wisely  than  other  men  the  voices  which 
Charles  Sumner  called  “  prophetic  voices  ”  concerning 
America,  and  he  knew  the  reason  why  sailing  west 
would  bring  him  to  the  East  that  he  sought.  Lead¬ 
ers  merely  lead.  They  are  only  a  little  in  advance. 
They  mark  the  irritation  of  the  stem  at  the  point 
where  the  bud  will  appear.  Men  like  John  Howard 
and  Pinel  are  signs  of  a  quickening  public  sense  of 
wrong  in  penal  and  curative  systems,  which  responds 
effectively  to  their  appeal.  In  Matthew  Vassar  ma¬ 
tured  the  vague  desire  and  tentative  groping  towards 
a  complete  opportunity  for  the  equal  higher  education 
of  women  ;  but  partial  efforts,  tentative  experiments,  in¬ 
telligent  schemes,  for  the  same  subject  there  had  already 
been,  and  already  signal  progress  had  been  achieved. 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  407 

It  is  about  a  century  since  an  active  and  constantly 
progressive  interest  in  the  higher,  or  more  truly  the  bet¬ 
ter,  education  of  women  began.  During  the  eighteenth 
century  the  schools  of  Prussia,  the  country  in  Europe 
which  has  most  fostered  the  interests  of  education,  had 
steadily  declined,  and  the  schools  for  girls  were  much 
less  efficient  than  those  for  boys.  The  great  impulse 
of  the  modern  Prussian  school  system  was  given  by  the 
most  famous  of  Homeric  scholars,  Frederick  Augustus 
Wolf,  who  was  invited  to  Halle  in  1783  by  Frederick 
the  Great.  Even  the  Prussian  catastrophe  at  Jena  in 
1806  was  not  strong  enough  permanently  to  disturb 
that  impulse,  which,  only  two  years  after  the  battle, 
created  a  department  of  schools  and  placed  William 
von  Humboldt  at  its  head.  It  was  under  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  same  impulse  which  produced  the  mod¬ 
ern  Prussian  school  system  that  in  1804  what  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  the  first  seminary  for  women  teachers  was 
founded  in  Prussia. 

But  still  the  general  European  feeling  regarding  the 
education  of  women  was  expressed  by  Mrs.  Barbauld’s 
exhortation  to  her  sex.  Remember,  she  says  to  what 
Thackeray  would  have  called  the  young  British  female 
of  a  century  ago,  “  your  best,  your  sweetest  empire  is 
to  please.”  Mrs.  Barbauld  was  one  of  the  most  esti¬ 
mable  of  women  and  altogether  superior  to  her  own 
exhortation,  which  was  simply  that  of  every  Circassian 
slave-dealer  hurrying  his  lovely  captive  to  the  seraglio. 
Meanwhile  in  this  country  much  of  the  freedom  and 
equality  which  were  vehemently  declared  to  be  the 
rights  of  human  nature  was  yet  waiting  for  recogni- 


408  the  higher  education  of  women 

tion,  and  continued,  and  with  all  that  has  been  achieved 
still  continues,  to  wait. 

If  a  woman  suggested  that  possibly  her  part  of  hu¬ 
man  nature  had  rights  also  as  well  as  powers,  she  was 
told  with  a  forgiving  smile  that  nature  had  endowed 
her  with  exquisite  emotions  and  remarkable  instincts 
and  intuitions,  and  that  Heaven  designed  her  to  be  a 
lovely  vine  hanging  by  delicate  tendrils  to  the  sturdy 
oak  of  man.  This  waiting  was  especially  true  of  the 
education  of  women.  Towards  the  close  of  the  century 
Mrs.  John  Adams,  one  of  the  most  highly  cultivated 
women  of  her  time,  said  that  “  female  education  in  the 
best  families  went  no  further  than  writing  and  arith¬ 
metic,  and  in  some  few  and  rare  instances  music  and 
dancing.”  But  the  general  standard  even  of  the  best 
education  in  this  country,  at  the  beginning  of  the  cen¬ 
tury  was  very  low.  In  the  year  1800,  although  there 
were  perhaps  twenty -five  institutions  in  the  Union 
called  colleges,  most  of  them  were  little  more  than  high- 
schools,  and  all  together  they  did  not  graduate,  proba¬ 
bly,  five  hundred  students  annually.  Noah  Webster 
said,  “  We  may  be  said  to  have  no  learning  at  all,  or  a 
mere  smattering ;  ...  as  to  libraries,  we  have  no  such 
things  ” ;  and  George  Ticknor,  writing  of  the  early  part 
of  the  century,  said  that  good  school-books  were  rare 
in  Boston — which  seems  to  us  to-day  much  like  saying 
that  good  diamonds  are  rare  in  Golconda  —  while  a 
copy  of  Euripides,  he  said,  could  not  be  bought  at 
any  bookseller’s,  nor  a  German  book  found  in  the  Col¬ 
lege  at  Cambridge — a  situation  to  be  paralleled  in  the 
imagination  only  by  Paris  without  the  opera  or  Epsom 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  409 

without  the  races.  If  the  scholastic  diet  of  men  at  that 
day  was  so  meagre,  we  can  imagine  what  that  of  women 
must  have  been. 

But  the  protest  of  feeling  had  already  begun.  Eighty 
years  ago,  reviewing,  in  the  Edinburgh ,  Mr.  Thomas 
Broadhurst’s  “  Advice  to  Young  Ladies  on  the  Improve¬ 
ment  of  the  Mind,”  a  title  which  might  have  described 
the  books  that  were  read  by  the  good  young  ladies  in 
Miss  Austen’s  novels,  Sydney  Smith  said  that  the  im¬ 
mense  disparity  which  existed  between  the  knowledge 
of  men  and  of  women  admitted  of  no  rational  defence ; 
because,  said  the  sensible  canon,  “  nature  has  been  as 
bountiful  of  understanding  to  one  sex  as  the  other.” 
While  he  was  writing,  Mrs.  Emma  Willard  —  whose 
name  should  be  always  held  in  honor  at  Vassar  and 
at  every  similar  institution  in  the  world — was  improv¬ 
ing  the  minds  of  young  ladies  at  a  school  in  Vermont, 
and  a  few  years  afterwards  founded,  also  upon  the  banks 
of  the  Hudson,  the  Troy  Female  Seminary.*  This  was 
a  conspicuous  advance  in  the  scope  and  conception  of 
such  academies  at  that  day.  But  the  time  was  ripe 
for  Mrs.  Willard,  as  it  was  for  Columbus  and  for  every 
leader  of  civilization.  In  the  year  after  the  opening  of 
the  Troy  Academy,  Miss  Catherine  Beecher,  at  Hart¬ 
ford,  began  her  higher  school  for  young  women,  and  at 
the  same  time  Mary  Lyon  was  already  teaching  in  New 
Hampshire.  These  schools  showered  the  seed  of  the 
higher  education  of  women  all  over  the  country,  and 
Mary  Lyon  cherished  the  hope  of  a  school  “  which 
should  be  to  young  women  what  a  college  is  to  young 


*  In  1821. 


4io 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


men/’  and  by  patient  devotion  and  persistence  she  mod¬ 
estly  founded  at  last  the  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary. 

Simultaneously  with  the  opening  of  the  schools  of 
Mrs.  Willard  and  Miss  Beecher  began  the  agitation  for 
a  girls’  high-school  in  Boston,  as  a  part  of  the  public- 
school  system  of  that  city.  With  careful  economy  of 
the  city  resources,  girls  had  been  permitted  to  attend 
the  public  schools  in  summer,  when  there  were  not 
boys  enough  to  fill  them.  But  a  pressure  for  a  more 
generous  education  had  arisen,  and  such  was  the  per¬ 
sistent  and  unwomanly  zeal  for  knowledge,  that  after 
a  prolonged  debate  of  three  years  a  high -school  was 
established.  The  onset  of  girls  bent  upon  higher  edu¬ 
cation  was  overwhelming.  Like  the  astounded  Mr. 
Barnacle  in  “  Little  Dorrit,”  the  city  fathers  were  con¬ 
fronted  by  a  persistent  crowd  of  scholars  that  “  wanted 
to  know,  you  know.” 

The  mayor  in  dismay  announced  that  “  two  hundred 
and  eighty-six  candidates  had  presented  themselves  for 
admission,  while  the  applications  for  the  boys’  high- 
school  had  never  exceeded  ninety,  and  the  greatest 
number  of  boys  ever  admitted  in  one  year  was  eighty- 
four.”  But  such  immoderate  zeal  for  knowledge  was 
never  known,  not  only  of  geography  and  history,  of  the 
multiplication -table  and  vulgar  fractions,  but  even  of 
chemistry  and  natural  philosophy.  What  was  to  be 
done  ?  What  if  these  daring  girls  should  demand  to 
study  Latin  and  Greek  ?  What  if  they  should  insist 
upon  Euclid  and  Laplace  ?  Zoology  and  moral  phi¬ 
losophy  and  even  astronomy  itself  might  follow.  The 
prospect  was  appalling.  The  awful  question  probably 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  411 

presented  itself  to  the  city  fathers,  What  if  Boston 
women  should  come  to  know  more  than  Boston  men  ? 
Suppose  there  should  arise  a  board  of  alderwomen, 
what  would  become  of  Boston  ?  As  the  good  old  dea¬ 
con  used  to  say,  “Suppose,  fellow -sinners,  you  should 
wake  up  to-morrow  morning  and  find  yourselves  dead, 
what  would  you  say  then?”  The  situation  became  in¬ 
tolerable,  and  in  eighteen  months  the  Boston  High- 
School  for  Girls  was  closed  because  there  was  so  great 
a  multitude  of  eager  scholars.  The  mayor  attested  the 
general  awakening  of  public  sentiment,  reversing  Mrs. 
Barbauld’s  gentle  gospel,  “  Your  best,  your  sweetest 
empire  is  to  please,”  by  saying,  “  It  is  just  as  imprac¬ 
ticable  to  give  a  classical  education  to  all  the  girls  of 
the  city  whose  parents  would  wish  them  to  be  thus 
educated  at  the  expense  of  the  city,  as  to  give  such  a 
one  to  all  the  boys  at  the  city’s  expense.  No  funds  of 
any  city  could  endure  the  expense  of  it.” 

About  sixty  years  ago,  then,  public  opinion  had  so 
far  advanced  that  Oberlin  College,  in  Ohio,  was  char¬ 
tered  in  1834,  and  apparently  the  first  collegiate  diplo¬ 
ma  granted  to  a  woman  in  this  country  was  at  Ober¬ 
lin  in  1838.  In  this  college  young  men  and  young 
women  were  associated  in  study.  Oberlin  was  the  first 
institution  to  try  the  experiment  of  co-education.  Hor¬ 
ace  Mann,  the  American  apostle  of  common-school  ed¬ 
ucation,  became  President  of  Antioch  College,  also  in 
Ohio,  in  1853,  and  spoke  of  co-education  there  as  his 
great  experiment.  In  the  previous  year  Lombard  Uni¬ 
versity,  in  Illinois,  was  chartered  with  absolute  equality 
of  its  privileges  between  the  sexes. 


412 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


These  were  undoubtedly  frontier  outposts  of  chang¬ 
ing  public  sentiment  regarding  the  education  of  women. 
But  meanwhile,  in  1836,  the  Legislature  of  Georgia  char¬ 
tered  a  college  for  women  at  Macon,  which  for  some 
mysterious  reason  was  called  the  Georgia  Female  Col¬ 
lege.  Women  are  undoubtedly  females,  but  no  more 
so  than  men  are  males.  The  word  college  does  not 
admit  the  distinction  of  sex,  and  there  is  no  more  pro¬ 
priety  in  calling  Vassar  a  female  college  than  Yale  or 
Columbia  a  male  college.  Upon  a  most  valuable  and 
excellent  institution  in  the  city  of  New  York  there  is 
a  sign  which  announces  that  a  reading-room  for  males 
and  females  is  to  be  found  within.  But  whether  de¬ 
signed  for  equine  males  or  bovine  females  is  not  stated. 
Besides  the  Georgia  college  for  women  there  was  a  Wes¬ 
leyan  College,  in  Ohio,  incorporated  in  1846,  and  in  1848 
the  Mary  Sharp  College  at  Winchester,  in  Tennessee, 
while  the  Elmira  College,  in  New  York,  graduated  its 
first  class  in  1859. 

These  facts  and  dates  are  interesting  not  as  incident 
to  any  controversy  of  priority,  but  as  illustrations  of  a 
changing  public  sentiment.  The  test  of  civilization  is 
the  estimate  of  woman.  The  measure  of  that  estimate 
is  the  degree  of  practical  acknowledgment  of  her  equal 
liberty  of  choice  and  action  with  men,  and  nothing  is 
historically  plainer  than  that  the  progress  of  moral  and 
political  liberty  since  the  Reformation  has  included  a 
consequent  and  constant  movement  for  the  abolition  of 
every  arbitrary  restraint  upon  the  freedom  of  women. 
It  has  been,  indeed,  very  gradual.  Compliment  and  in¬ 
credulity  have  persistently  bowed  out  justice  and  rea- 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  413 

son.  But  as  usual  the  exiles  have  steadily  returned 
stronger  and  more  resolute.  Their  first  definite  de¬ 
mand  was  that  of  education.  For  this  they  have 
pleaded  against  tradition,  prejudice,  scepticism,  ridi¬ 
cule,  and  superstition.  There  has  been  bitter  conten¬ 
tion  not  only  over  the  end,  but  the  means.  Profuse 
eloquence  and  wit  and  learning  have  been  expended 
in  the  discussion  of  the  comparative  excellence  of  co¬ 
education  or  separate  education,  of  the  limitations  and 
conditions  which  Nature  herself  has  prescribed  to  the 
range  and  degree  of  education  for  women,  of  the  divine 
intentions,  and  of  the  natural  sphere  of  the  sexes. 

In  this  ardent  but  ludicrous  debate  there  have  been 
as  many  theorizers  as  theories.  The  gentlemen  of 
Charles  II. ’s  court  thought  that  women  were  educated 
enough  if  they  could  spell  out  the  recipes  of  pies  and 
puddings,  the  manufacture  of  which  nature  had  in¬ 
trusted  to  their  tender  mercies.  Lord  Byron  did  not 
like  to  see  women  eat,  because  he  thought  angels  should 
be  superior  to  beef  and  beer,  and  it  is  still  a  very  pop¬ 
ular  current  belief  that  it  is  the  sphere  of  lovely  woman 

“To  eat  strawberries,  sugar,  and  cream. 

Sit  on  a  cushion,  and  sew  up  a  seam.” 

This  debate  of  the  sphere  of  the  sexes  as  determining 
the  character  and  limits  of  education  is  very  amusing. 
For  if  the  sexes  have  spheres,  there  really  seems  to  be 
no  more  reason  to  apprehend  that  women  will  desert 
their  sphere  than  men.  I  have  not  observed  any  gen¬ 
eral  anxiety  lest  men  should  steal  away  from  their  work¬ 
shops  and  offices  that  they  may  darn  the  family  stock- 


4X4 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


ings  or  cook  the  dinner,  and  I  see  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  it  will  be  necessary  to  chain  women  to  the  cradle 
to  prevent  their  insisting  upon  running  locomotives  or 
shipping  before  the  mast.  We  may  be  very  sure  that 
we  shall  never  know  the  sphere  of  any  responsible  hu¬ 
man  being  until  he  has  perfect  freedom  of  choice  and 
liberty  of  growth.  All  we  can  clearly  see  is  that  the 
intellectual  capacity  of  women  is  an  inexplicable  waste 
of  reserved  power,  if  its  utmost  education  is  justly  to  be 
deprecated  as  useless  or  undesirable. 

Our  dogmatism  in  sheer  speculation  is  constantly  sati¬ 
rized  by  history.  Education  was  not  more  vehement¬ 
ly  alleged  to  be  absurd  for  women  than  political  equal¬ 
ity  to  be  dangerous  for  men.  Happily  our  own  century 
has  played  havoc  with  both  beliefs,  however  sincerely 
supposed  to  be  ordinances  of  nature.  The  century  be¬ 
gan  with  saying  contemptuously  that  women  do  not 
need  to  be  educated  to  be  dutiful  wives  and  good  moth¬ 
ers.  A  woman,  it  said,  can  dress  prettily  and  dance 
gracefully  even  if  she  cannot  conjugate  the  Greek  verbs 
in  mi;  and  the  ability  to  calculate  an  eclipse  would  not 
help  her  to  keep  cream  from  feathering  in  hot  weather. 
But  grown  older  and  wiser  the  century  asks,  as  it  ends, 
“  Is  it  then  true  that  ignorant  women  are  the  best  wives 
and  mothers?  Does  good  wifehood  consist  exclusively 
in  skilful  baking  and  boiling  and  neat  darning  and 
patching?  No,”  says  the  enlightened  century;  “  if  the 
more  languages  a  man  hath  the  more  man  is  he,  the 
more  knowledge  a  woman  hath  the  better  wife  and 
mother  is  she.”  And  if  any  sceptic  should  ask,  “  But 
can  delicate  woman  endure  the  hardship  of  a  college 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  415 

course  of  study?”  it  is  a  woman  who  ingeniously  turns 
the  flank  of  the  questioner  with  a  covert  sarcasm  at  her 
own  sex — “  I  would  like  you  to  take  thirteen  hundred 
young  men,  and  lace  them  up,  and  hang  ten  to  twenty 
pounds  of  clothes  upon  their  waists,  perch  them  on 
three-inch  heels,  cover  their  heads  with  ripples,  chi¬ 
gnons,  rats,  and  mice,  and  stick  ten  thousand  hairpins 
into  their  scalps.  If  they  can  stand  all  this  they  will 
stand  a  little  Latin  and  Greek.” 

“  While  I  was  musing,”  says  the  Psalmist,  “  the  fire 
burned.”  While  the  controversy  about  woman  blew 
high  and  low,  common-sense  steadily  prevailed  and  pub¬ 
lic  opinion  ripened.  There  are  always  watchmen  on 
high  towers  of  observation  who  foretell  the  approach 
of  change.  Like  the  muezzin  on  the  minaret  of  the 
mosque,  they  wake  while  others  sleep.  But  the  spirit 
of  an  age  is  shown,  not  in  the  foresight  of  its  wiser 
men  and  the  dreams  and  hopes  of  the  few,  but  in  its 
general  disposition  and  thought.  It  is  not  the  arbutus 
and  the  early  violet  of  doubtful  April  which  assure  us 
that  summer  has  come,  but  the  whole  blossoming  land¬ 
scape  and  the  halcyon  air  of  June.  So  it  seems  to  me 
the  maturity  of  public  sentiment  in  this  country  in  re¬ 
gard  to  the  education  of  women  is  admirably  illustrated 
in  the  foundation  of  this  institution.  Matthew  Vassar 
was  not  a  student  nor  a  scholar,  nor  were  his  familiar 
associations  those  of  the  university  and  intellectual  life. 
From  his  childhood  he  was  immersed  in  business  and 
trade.  Sturdy,  upright,  faithful,  sagacious,  he  was  an 
admirable  representative  of  what  Lincoln  happily  called 
“  the  plain  people,”  who  have  given  to  this  country  its 


41 6  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 

distinctive  character.  His  life  and  thought  undoubt¬ 
edly  reflected  the  general  tendency  of  the  time  and  the 
community  in  which  he  lived.  The  public  sentiment 
of  an  old  American  community  like  this  is  usually  in¬ 
telligent  and  progressive  in  a  degree  which  is  often  un¬ 
known  until  it  is  demonstrated  either  by  some  emer¬ 
gency  like  that  of  the  civil  war  or  by  some  individual 
act. 

There  are  great  names  in  the  history  of  New  York, 
names  illustrious  from  the  character  and  service  of 
those  who  bore  them,  names  fondly  familiar  as  those 
of  fathers  and  leaders  of  the  State.  But  among  the 
most  eminent  of  such  citizens  whom  the  old  English 
phrase  described  as  worthies,  eminent  for  the  signifi¬ 
cance  and  value  of  their  services  in  a  sphere  which  has 
none  of  the  exciting  glamour  of  military  achievement  or 
political  renown,  are  Ezra  Cornell  and  Matthew  Vassar. 
One  day  during  the  debate  in  the  last  Constitutional 
Convention  of  this  State*  upon  the  proposed  clause  in 
regard  to  Cornell  University,  I  was  sitting  by  Mr.  Cor¬ 
nell,  and  when  one  of  the  speakers  quoted  a  Latin 
phrase  Mr.  Cornell  turned  to  me  and  said,  “  What  does 
that  mean?”  Fortunately  for  me  the  answer  was  not 
difficult,  and  when  I  explained,  he  said  quietly,  “  If  I 
can  have  my  way,  nobody  in  this  State  hereafter  need 
be  obliged  to  ask  that  question.” 

“  I  challenge  any  lover  of  Massachusetts,”  said  a  great 
patriot  and  scholar  f  at  the  centenary  of  the  battle  of 
Concord  and  Lexington,  “  to  read  the  fifty-ninth  chap- 


*  In  1867. 


f  Mr.  Emerson. 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  417 

ter  of  ‘  Bancroft’s  History’  without  tears  of  joy.”  It  is 
the  chapter  which  describes  the  beginning  of  the  Revo¬ 
lution.  With  something  of  the  same  feeling  I  may  say 
that  I  challenge  any  lover  of  New  York  or  of  the 
American  character  to  read  the  first  communication  of 
Matthew  Vassar  to  the  trustees  of  this  college  without 
profound  gratitude  and  admiration.  In  his  simple 
words,  unconsciously  to  himself,  speaks  the  truest  spirit 
of  his  time  and  country.  “  It  occurred  to  me  that  wom¬ 
an,  having  received  from  her  Creator  the  same  intellect¬ 
ual  constitution  as  man,  has  the  same  right  as  man  to 
intellectual  culture  and  development.”  These  words 
might  well  be  carved  in  gold  over  the  entrance  of  Vas¬ 
sar  College.  The  fundamental  truth  which  settles  the 
controversy  about  the  education  of  women  was  never 
more  completely  and  exclusively  expressed,  and,  like  all 
fundamental  truths  when  once  adequately  stated,  it  is 
simple  and  indisputable.  Yet  in  that  controversy,  if  he 
heeded  it  at  all,  Mr.  Vassar  had  taken  no  part.  The 
conflict  with  tradition  and  the  logical  consequences 
which  his  views  involved,  if  they  occurred  to  him,  did 
not  trouble  him.  “  I  consider,”  he  said,  “that  the  moth¬ 
ers  of  a  country  mould  the  character  of  its  citizens,  de¬ 
termine  its  institutions,  and  shape  its  destiny.”  The 
duty  and  the  necessity  of  the  thorough  training  of  all 
their  faculties  were  therefore  to  his  mind  unquestion¬ 
able.  If  anybody  was  anxious  about  the  sphere  of 
woman,  Mr.  Vassar  was  not.  Reason  and  observation 
had  revealed  it.  As  there  was  no  doubt  that  it  was  for 
the  interest  of  society  that  men  should  be  thoroughly 
trained  morally,  intellectually,  and  industrially,  there 
I. — 27 


418  the  higher  education  of  women 

could  be  no  doubt  that  such  training  was  equally  de¬ 
sirable  for  women,  except  upon  the  theory  which  ad¬ 
vancing  civilization  had  steadily  abjured. 

Mr.  Vassar’s  declaration  twenty-five  years  ago  is  the 
satisfactory  evidence  that  public  sentiment  had  reached 
the  conviction  which  his  few  and  unqualified  words 
announce.  Those  words  quietly  set  aside  forever  the 
practice  of  the  Boston  High -School  admitting  girls 
when  boys  did  not  want  the  places.  They  signalized 
the  end  of  the  tradition  which  had  produced  the  im¬ 
mense  disparity,  that  Sydney  Smith  declared  admitted 
of  no  defence,  between  the  knowledge  of  men  and 
women.  “For  the  last  thirty  years,”  said  Mr.  Vassar, 
“  the  standard  of  education  for  the  sex  has  been  con¬ 
stantly  rising  in  the  United  States.”  The  chief  obstruc¬ 
tion  was  want  of  ample  endowment.  “  It  is  my  hope,” 
said  he,  “  to  be  the  instrument  in  the  hand  of  Provi¬ 
dence  of  founding  an  institution  which  shall  accomplish 
for  young  women  what  our  colleges  are  accomplishing 
for  young  men.” 

The  movement  of  opinion  which  lifted  Mr.  Vassar  to 
his  happy  design  had  already  produced,  as  we  have 
seen,  seminaries  and  even  colleges  for  women.  But, 
admirable  as  schools,  and  significant  as  they  were  of 
the  tendencies  of  thought,  the  adequate  resource  and 
comprehensive  scheme  which  surround  the  teacher  with 
all  the  appliances  of  teaching  were  here  first  fully  and 
properly  supplied.  And  if  now,  at  the  end  of  a  quarter 
of  a  century  from  the  opening  of  its  doors,  the  founder, 
as  he  naturally  liked  to  be  called,  should  visibly  re¬ 
turn,  and  sitting  here  should  contemplate  his  work  and 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  419 

closely  survey  the  record  of  this  college,  would  he  regret 
his  high  resolve  and  wish  that  he  had  given  it  another 
form?  His  deliberate  decision  founded  this  institution, 
which  was  at  once  the  test  of  the  accuracy  with  which 
he  apprehended  the  drift  of  the  sentiment  of  his  time 
and  one  of  its  strongest  confirmations.  Was  he  wrong 
in  believing  that  the  time  had  come  for  opening  to 
women  the  opportunity  of  the  highest  education?  Vas- 
sar  asks.  Smith  and  Wellesley  and  Bryn  Mawr,  Hol¬ 
yoke  and  Barnard  colleges,  and  all  the  opening  college 
doors  and  opening  minds  of  trustees  and  faculties,  the 
professional  schools  for  women,  and  fellowships  and 
endowments,  and  vanishing  sophistries  and  prejudices, 
and  the  extending  empire  of  common-sense,  all  answer. 
Even  the  good  old  conservative  stock  of  our  Columbia 
College,  the  scholastic  home  of  Hamilton  and  Jay,  of 
Gouverneur  Morris  and  De  Witt  Clinton,  brilliantly 
blossoms  into  degrees  for  women,  and,  as  the  other 
older  collegiate  nurseries  of  our  education  feel  the  gen¬ 
tle  feminine  pressure  which  holds  their  hesitating  gates 
ajar,  the  chorus  of  manly  voices  within  begins  to  mur¬ 
mur,  “  If  women  are  not  afraid  of  us,  why  should  we  be 
afraid  of  women  ?” 

Elsewhere  in  the  world  the  spectacle  is  the  same. 
In  England,  in  the  shadow  of  venerable  Oxford  and  Cam¬ 
bridge,  Girton  and  Newnham  Colleges  share  the  equal 
facilities  of  the  universities,  and  both  the  great  univer¬ 
sities  have  extended  themselves  by  establishing  through¬ 
out  the  kingdom  examinations  to  which  multitudes  of 
studious  girls  resort.  In  Germany,  as  Miss  Emma  At¬ 
kinson  Almy  tells  us  in  a  recent  paper,  women  ask  en- 


42  0 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


trance  for  scientific  study  into  the  universities  of  Prussia, 
Wiirtemberg,  and  Bavaria.  The  government  hesitates, 
but  sends  an  envoy  to  inquire  into  the  methods  and 
workings  of  the  English  colleges  for  women,  while  the 
Victoria  Lyceum  at  Berlin  has  established  a  course  and 
methods  of  study  which  would  naturally  develop  into 
a  university  ending  in  a  State  examination  and  diploma. 
In  France  the  higher  schools  for  women  are  constantly 
higher  still,  and  at  the  Educational  Congress  in  Paris, 
during  the  Exposition  of  last  year,*  women  were  as  val¬ 
ued  counsellors  as  in  our  late  National  Conference  of 
Charities  at  Baltimore,  or  upon  State  boards  and  school 
committees.  The  University  of  Paris  opens  its  doors 
to  women  in  certain  studies,  and  the  London  Univer¬ 
sity  does  not  hesitate.  The  universities  of  Australia 
are  open  to  women  upon  equal  terms  with  men.  To 
Switzerland  the  aspiring  young  women  of  Germany  re¬ 
sort  to  secure  the  education  which  as  yet  their  father- 
land  denies,  while  the  Spanish  and  Italian  universities 
do  not  disdain  to  train  women  in  special  studies,  and 
northern  Europe  provides  schools  for  women  of  con¬ 
stantly  higher  grades,  and  obeys  the  wise  and  kindly 
spirit  of  the  age. 

But  there  is  yet  a  final  question.  Conceding  that 
Mr.  Vassar’s  act  was  justified  by  the  conviction  and  the 
desire  of  his  time — still,  were  they  not  mistaken ;  was 
not  the  foreboding  of  doubt  a  forecast  of  truth,  and  the 
warning  of  ancient  tradition  a  voice  which  should  have 
been  heeded?  Matthew  Vassar  was  an  emancipator. 


*  In  1889. 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


421 


To  those  who,  comparatively  speaking,  had  sat  in  dark¬ 
ness  he  gave  light.  But  are  not  those  now  justified 
who  winced  at  the  shining  of  the  light?  That  is  the 
question.  Have  this  larger  liberty  of  education,  this 
freedom  of  choice,  this  devoted  and  successful  study, 
this  winning  of  the  scholastic  palm  and  proud  decora¬ 
tion  of  the  degree — have  all  these,  either  in  the  persons 
of  the  students  themselves  or  in  the  general  effect 
upon  their  sex  and  upon  the  estimate  of  it,  justified 
in  any  point  the  sorrowful  anticipations  which  seemed 
to  regard  the  opening  gates  of  the  highest  education 
for  women  as  the  flood-gates  of  a  torrent  of  evils  which 
should  sweep  away  the  loveliness  and  grace  and  es¬ 
sential  charm  of  womanhood?  Since  Vassar  opened 
its  door  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  has  there  been  a 
marked  tendency  among  American  women  to  abandon 
domestic  life  and  to  attempt  occupations  for  which 
they  are  not  fitted  ?  Or,  to  state  it  to  you  ad  feminam , 
is  it  true  that  upon  the  gates  of  this  college  must  be 
written  a  doom  as  mournful  as  that  which  the  Dan- 
tean  words  decree  ?  Whoever  enters  here,  must  she 
leave  behind  the  fairest  hope  for  woman  or  for  man? 
Is  that  the  curse  of  Paradise,  the  endless  price  of  the 
fatal  apple  ? 

Truth  and  experience  laugh  the  question  to  scorn, 
and  scatter  the  cloud  of  foolish  rhetoric  about  the 
sphere  and  duty  and  capacity  and  divine  intention  of 
woman,  as  if  upon  that  particular  subject  men  were 
in  the  counsels  of  the  Almighty  and  women  were  care¬ 
fully  excluded.  There  is  no  surer  sign  of  a  more  lib¬ 
eral  civilization  and  a  wiser  world  than  the  perception 


422 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


that  the  bounds  of  legitimate  womanly  interest  and 
activity  are  not  to  be  set  by  men,  as  heretofore,  to 
mark  their  own  convenience  and  pleasure.  The  tra¬ 
dition  of  the  lovely  incapacity  of  woman  reflects  either 
the  sensitive  apprehension  or  the  ignoble  abasement 
of  man.  The  progressive  amelioration  of  the  laws  that 
have  always  restricted  her  equality  of  right,  the  enlarg¬ 
ing  range  of  her  industrial  occupations,  and  the  vanish¬ 
ing  of  prejudices  and  follies  of  opinion  that  once  seemed 
insuperable,  these  are  now  the  signs  in  the  heavens. 

And  perhaps  in  some  sense  more  persuasive  and  con¬ 
clusive  than  these,  is  the  verdict  of  literature,  which  un¬ 
consciously  records  the  highest  and  final  judgment  of 
an  age.  The  women  of  to-day,  as  depicted  by  the  gen¬ 
ius  of  the  philosophical  historian  and  artist  of  current 
society  whom  we  call  novelist,  is  a  very  different  figure 
from  the  woman  of  the  eighteenth-century  novel.  In¬ 
deed,  that  novel  was  not  written  for  her.  She  was  not 
expected  to  read  it,  and  if  we  fancy  Cowper  and  Mrs. 
Unwin  reading  “  Tom  Jones”  and  “Amelia,”  we  only 
see  that  Mrs.  Unwin  was  very  unlike  the  educated  ma¬ 
tron  of  to-day  ;  while  in  Goldsmith’s  “Vicar,”  the  purest 
idyl  of  them  all,  we  still  hear  the  tone  of  the  time,  the 
thin  refrain  of  the  baby-house  in  the  nursery,  “Your 
best,  your  sweetest  empire  is  to  please.”  It  is  a  fresher 
air,  a  sweeter  music  that  breathe  through  the  English 
novel  of  to-day,  and  it  is  in  the  literature  of  the  English 
tongue  as  in  the  feeling  of  the  English-speaking  race, 
that  we  must  look  for  the  true  contemporaneous  posi¬ 
tion  of  woman. 

All  these  things  are  the  happy  harbingers  of  the  tran- 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


423 


quil  and  conclusive  adjustment  of  what  Margaret  Fuller 
nearly  fifty  years  ago  called  the  great  lawsuit  of  man 
against  men,  woman  against  women.  It  is  a  case 
called  long  since  in  the  highest  court  of  justice  and 
appealed  from  age  to  age.  But  observe  how  curiously 
the  plain  good  sense  of  Matthew  Vassar,  in  1862,  re¬ 
sponds  to  the  words  of  the  most  learned  and  accom¬ 
plished  woman  of  her  time  in  America  twenty  years 
before.  The  demand  of  woman,  she  said  with  proud 
and  subtle  scorn,  is  not  poetic  incense ;  every  woman 
can  receive  that  from  her  lover.  It  is  not  life-long 
sway ;  every  woman  by  becoming  a  coquette,  a  shrew, 
or  a  good  cook,  can.  secure  that.  It  is  not  money  nor 
notoriety  nor  badges  of  authority.  These  may  be 
sometimes  sought  by  women,  but  they  are  not  the 
demand  of  woman.  Her  demand  is,  “  for  that  which 
is  the  birthright  of  every  being  capable  to  receive  it: 
the  freedom,  the  religious,  the  intelligent  freedom  of 
the  universe ;  to  use  its  means,  to  learn  its  secret  as 
far  as  nature  has  enabled  her,  with  God  alone  for  her 
guide  and  her  judge.”  In  these  words  Margaret  Fuller 
said  nothing  which  Matthew  Vassar  did  not  say.  But 
they  were  mutually  unknown.  Probably  he  had  never 
heard  her  name,  and  she  was  dead  long  before  his  name 
was  known.  But  when  the  word  and  act  of  such  a 
man  unconsciously  confirm  the  thought  of  such  a 
woman,  it  is  because  the  common-sense  of  man  appre¬ 
hends  the  deepest  and  most  essential  feeling  of  woman. 
Her  feeling  is  not  that  of  a  goddess  nor  of  a  houri, 
whatever  their  feelings  may  be,  but  that  of  a  human 
being.  In  a  few  simple  words  the  whole  woman-ques- 


424 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN 


tion  was  solved  by  the  clear -minded  man  and  the 
thoughtful  woman. 

It  was  before  she  had  written  the  paper,  while  she 
was  yet  a  young  woman,  that,  as  a  boy  in  Providence, 
where  she  had  come  to  be  a  teacher  in  a  classical 
school,  supporting  herself  and  her  brothers  whom  she 
educated,  I  first  saw  Margaret  Fuller.  She  was  already 
the  friend  of  scholars  and  famous  men  and  noble  wom¬ 
en,  and  her  wit  and  wisdom  and  extraordinary  accom¬ 
plishment  easily  dominated  the  brilliant  society  of  the 
city.  She  was  a  woman  of  delightful  humor  and  gay- 
ety  of  manner;  and  as  it  was  said  of  Burns  that  the 
charm  of  his  conversation  called  travellers  at  the  inn 
from  their  beds  at  midnight  to  listen,  I  have  heard 
Margaret  Fuller  keep  a  company  of  young  persons  on 
a  journey  constantly  enthralled  by  her  racy  wit  and 
humorous  intelligence.  A  scholar,  a  critic,  a  thinker, 
a  teacher — above  all,  a  person  of  delicate  insight  and 
sympathy — of  the  utmost  feminine  refinement  of  feel¬ 
ing  and  of  dauntless  spiritual  courage,  she  seems  to  me 
still  the  figure  of  Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
which  was  the  title  of  her  best-known  paper. 

Daughters  of  Vassar,  such  is  the  woman,  I  doubt 
not,  whom  Matthew  Vassar  vaguely  foresaw  when  his 
generous  heart  inspired  him  to  his  noble  task.  It  is 
the  woman  who,  as  a  lofty  ideal,  presides  over  the  stu¬ 
dious  hours  and  quiet  meditations  of  these  halls.  It 
is  the  woman  of  the  nineteenth  century  whom  the 
other  centuries  foretold.  The  old  times,  indeed,  were 
good,  but  the  new  times  are  better.  We  have  left 
woman  as  a  slave  with  Homer  and  Pericles ;  we  have 


I 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION  OF  WOMEN  425 

left  her  as  a  foolish  goddess  with  chivalry  and  Don 
Quixote ;  we  have  left  her  as  a  toy  with  Chesterfield 
and  the  club ;  and  in  the  enlightened  American  daugh¬ 
ter,  wife,  and  mother,  in  the  free  American  home,  we 
find  the  fairest  flower  and  the  highest  promise  of 
American  civilization. 


XVIII 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  CONVOCATION 

IN  ALBANY,  JULY  9,  1 890 


' 


THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 


The  grace  of  our  summer  is  the  literary  festival. 
In  the  midst  of  pursuits  remote  from  letters  and  science 
the  Commencement  season  calls  us  from  the  market  and 
the  shop,  and  for  one  happy  day  blends  the  delight  of 
intellectual  communion  with  the  culminating  beauty  of 
the  year.  As  members  of  this  convocation  we  are  mem¬ 
bers  of  a  university.  But  we  stand  in  no  college  halls, 
we  are  touched  by  no  local  associations,  we  exchange 
no  greetings  of  old  classmates,  we  share  no  fond  tradi¬ 
tions.  What  then  is  the  significance  of  our  assembly? 
What  is  the  University  that  draws  us  hither? 

The  University  of  the  State  of  New  York  is  one  of 
the  oldest  institutions  in  the  State,  but  none  of  so  great 
importance  is  so  little  known.  Its  regents,  or  governing 
body,  are  elected  by  the  Legislature  with  the  same  cir¬ 
cumstance  that  attends  the  election  of  senators  of  the 
United  States,  a  dignity  which  attests  the  original  con¬ 
ception  of  the  gravity  and  public  value  of  their  function, 
and  the  chief  executive  officers  of  the  State  are  associ¬ 
ated  with  them  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties.  The 
nineteen  chairs  of  the  regents,  if  not  filled  always  by 


430  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

immortals  like  those  of  the  French  Academy,  have 
been  occupied  by  some  of  the  most  eminent  citizens 
of  New  York.  Every  chair  is  ennobled  by  a  long  line 
of  distinguished  occupants,  and  the  line  is  preserved  by 
continuous  succession.  John  Jay  first  sat  in  the  chair 
in  which  I  sit,  then  the  older  Gulian  Verplanck,  then 
James  Kent.  Each  of  my  colleagues  traces  a  kindred 
ancestry  of  his  chair,  and,  contemplating  the  men  whom 
he  succeeds,  each  acknowledges  with  me  that,  in  the 
truest  sense,  noblesse  oblige. 

The  names  of  illustrious  men  are  the  eulogies  of 
those  who  bear  them  and  the  inspiration  of  those  who 
follow.  George  Clinton,  who  was  the  first  chancellor, 
and  Alexander  Hamilton,  John  Jay,  Philip  Schuyler, 
Egbert  Benson,  John  Morin  Scott,  Pierre  Van  Cort- 
landt,  Brockholst  Livingston,  Richard  Varick,  James 
Duane,  Morgan  Lewis,  Abraham  Yates,  John  Lansing, 
are  among  the  earliest  regents  of  the  University  and 
the  most  honored  citizens  of  New  York.  Elected  by 
the  Legislature,  in  which  the  majority  is  determined  by 
political  sympathy,  the  conditions  of  the  nomination  and 
election  of  the  regents  bring  within  the  range  of  party 
politics  an  action  which  should  be  absolutely  indepen¬ 
dent  of  politics.  But  the  highest  tribute  to  the  Board 
of  Regents  is  the  truth  that,  although  every  member  is 
elected  by  a  party  vote,  yet  at  the  door  of  their  coun¬ 
cil-chamber  party  vanishes  and  politics  disappear.  I 
believe  that  the  Board  of  Regents  of  the  University  is 
the  only  important  official  body  in  this  State  elected 
by  a  strictly  party  vote  which  in  its  action  is  entirely 
independent  of  party,  and  I  have  heard  no  complaint 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  43 1 

that  for  that  reason  its  action  is  less  efficient  or  less 
satisfactory. 

But,  notwithstanding  the  dignity  of  its  origin,  the 
character  of  its  regents,  and  the  constantly  increasing 
importance  of  its  service,  the  University  has  long  been 
and  still  is  singularly  unknown  to  the  great  multitude  of 
our  fellow-citizens.  The  popular  idea  of  a  regent,  fifty 
years  ago,  was  that  of  a  venerable  figure,  either  bald 
or  gray-headed,  of  irreproachable  respectability  and  in¬ 
expressible  pomp  of  manner,  whose  tottering  steps  were 
aided  by  a  gold -headed  cane,  whose  mysterious  office 
was  uncomprehended,  if  not  incomprehensible,  and  whose 
aspect  altogether  might  suggest  a  fossilized  functionary 
of  the  paleozoic  period.  The  poet  Halleck,  the  gay 
laureate  of  the  little  city  of  New  York  seventy  years 
ago,  reflecting  the  popular  fancy  of  the  time,  winged  one 
of  the  Croaker  s  airy  shafts  of  satire  at  the  regents.  A 
few  months  since,  upon  my  election  to  the  chancellor¬ 
ship,  an  intelligent  citizen  of  New  York,  if  I  am  just¬ 
ified  in  using  precisely  that  adjective,  asked  me  if  my 
new  duties  would  require  my  personal  instruction  of  the 
classes  in  the  University.  Upon  my  amused  reply  he 
also  smiled  and  confessed  that  he  had  heard  of  the  in¬ 
stitution  all  his  life,  but  had  never  known  what  it  was. 
One  of  the  most  eminent  lawyers  of  the  State  begged 
to  congratulate  me  upon  my  election  and  at  the  same 
time  to  ask  where  the  University  was  situated  ;  and 
when  recently  I  was  relating  these  two  anecdotes  to  one 
of  the  most  sagacious  merchants  in  the  city,  he  smiled 
demurely  and  then  said  modestly,  “  I  should  like  to 
know,  too.”  But  when  a  son  of  Harvard,  his  sublime 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 


head  striking  the  stars,  asked,  “What  is  the  University 
of  the  State  of  New  York?”  I  could  but  murmur, 

“Tantaene  animis  coelestibus” — ignorantise. 

I  felt  that  such  bewilderment  upon  such  a  subject 
ought  to  be  remedied.  If  it  were  the  fault  of  the  Uni¬ 
versity,  it  was  obviously  a  fault  of  modesty.  If  it  were 
merely  the  ignorance  of  citizens  of  New  York  who  ought 
to  know  better,  it  illustrated  the  imperative  necessity  of 
immediate  higher  education. 

It  is  true  that  I  speak  at  this  moment  to  precisely 
that  company  of  scholars  and  collegiate  and  academic 
teachers  which  at  once  comprises  and  comprehends  the 
University.  But  if  in  speaking  to  you  I  may  be  over¬ 
heard  by  those  who  may  learn  in  that  way,  but  are  un¬ 
likely  to  learn  in  any  other,  I  know  that  your  devotion 
to  the  good  cause  is  such  that  you  will  willingly  sacri¬ 
fice  yourselves  once  more  to  hearing  what  you  already 
know  completely,  in  order  that  others  may  know  a  little. 

When  the  last  gun  of  the  Revolution  was  fired,  the 
tough  old  Governor  of  New  York,  George  Clinton, 
who  had  fired  a  great  many  of  them,  saw  that  the 
whole  system  of  education  in  the  State  was  prostrate. 
There  were  no  public-schools,  the  private  schools  lan¬ 
guished,  and  the  only  college,  blighted  by  a  name  of 
evil  augury  to  the  Sons  of  Liberty,  had  been  closed 
during  the  war.  The  governor  immediately  urged  the 
Legislature  to  consider  practically  the  revival  and  en¬ 
couragement  of  schools.  The  Legislature  promptly  re¬ 
sponded,  and  in  the  first  session  after  the  war  the 
regents  of  the  University  were  incorporated  as  the  gov- 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  433 

erning  body  of  King’s  College,  which  was  to  be  revived 
under  the  name  of  Columbia,  and  of  such  other  colleges 
as  the  regents  might  choose  to  establish.  Some  details 
of  the  scheme  were  amusingly  crude  and  imperfect. 
There  were  sixty-four  regents,  besides  those  elected  as 
representatives  of  religious  denominations,  widely  scat¬ 
tered  over  the  State.  Meetings  were  very  difficult,  and 
the  only  duty  of  the  cumbrous  body  was  the  care  of  a 
very  small  classical  school.  This  duty  included  not  only 
the  employment  and  payment  of  professors  from  an  in¬ 
come  of  not  more  than  twelve  hundred  pounds,  and  the 
prescribing  a  system  of  discipline  for  the  students,  but 
the  repairing  of  the  college  building,  making  the  porter’s 
lodge  comfortable,  buying  a  bell  to  summon  the  students 
and  four  cords  of  wood  annually  to  warm  the  professors, 
and  providing  mops  and  dust-pans  for  the  domestic  wel¬ 
fare  of  the  little  college.  It  was  a  humorous  disparity  of 
means  and  ends,  but  a  disparity  easily  remedied. 

Three  years  later,  in  1787,  the  Legislature  authorized  a 
revision  of  the  law.  Alexander  Hamilton  was  that  year 
an  assemblyman,  and  Ezra  L’Hommedieu  was  a  sena¬ 
tor,  O  si  sic  omnes  !  and  they  were  both  members  of  the 
committee  on  revision,  of  which  Hamilton  is  believed  to 
have  been  the  controlling  force.  The  act  which  they 
reported  created  the  University  substantially  as  it  now 
exists.  It  is  a  work  worthy  of  our  foremost  master  of 
statecraft,  and  it  is  interesting  to  study  it  as  an  illustra¬ 
tion  of  his  creative  public  genius.  Its  design  was  sim¬ 
ple,  characteristic,  and  comprehensive.  It  forecast  in 
the  sphere  of  education  the  political  organization  which 
the  Constitutional  Convention  of  the  same  year  applied 
I.—28 


434  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

to  the  union  of  the  States.  Hamilton’s  report,  while 
dealing  with  academic  education,  declared  that  primary 
schools  in  the  State  should  not  be  left  to  the  discretion 
of  private  citizens,  but  that  primary  instruction  should 
be  given  in  public  schools  by  public  authority.  Under 
the  name  of  the  University  of  New  York  he  evidently 
meant  to  include  the  whole  system  of  education  in  the 
State,  and  to  give  it  the  vitality  and  vigor  which  result 
from  local  government  under  a  strong,  central,  supervi¬ 
sory  supremacy. 

The  bill  reported  by  Hamilton’s  committee  became 
law.  It  authorized  the  regents  to  visit  and  inspect  all 
colleges,  academies,  and  schools  which  were  or  might 
be  established  in  this  State,  to  examine  into  the  condi¬ 
tion  of  education,  and  to  make  a  yearly  report  to  the 
Legislature.  It  empowered  them  to  confer  the  highest 
degrees  and  to  charter  colleges  and  academies  and  to 
promote  academies  to  collegiate  rank.  The  act  re¬ 
leased  the  regents  from  responsibility  for  the  repairs 
and  cleanliness  as  well  as  the  finances  and  discipline  of 
Columbia  College,  giving  to  it  a  certain  independence 
of  the  University  by  reviving  the  original  charter  of 
1754,  but  retaining  in  the  regents  the  power  of  visita¬ 
tion  and  inspection.  Although  empowering  the  Uni¬ 
versity  to  grant  degrees,  Hamilton  seems  to  have  de¬ 
signed  it  to  be  substantially  a  comprehensive  State 
department  of  education.  Informed  of  the  situation 
and  necessities  of  that  interest  by  visitation,  inspec¬ 
tion,  and  investigation,  the  Board  of  Regents  was  to 
influence  by  its  report  the  action  of  the  Legislature. 
It  was  to  be  the  agency  and  the  sole  agency  by  which 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  435 

the  relations  of  the  State  to  education  were  to  be  con¬ 
ducted. 

This  was  the  original  and  fundamental  scheme  of  the 
University  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and,  except  in  one 
point,  this  is  included  in  its  present  scope  and  power. 
It  is  now  the  intermediary  of  the  State,  not  with  all  the 
institutions  and  interests  of  education,  but  with  those 
only  of  the  higher  and  secondary  education.  The  vast 
system  of  the  public  schools  has  never  been  placed  un¬ 
der  its  control.  For  some  time  it  was  administered  as 
a  separate  interest  by  the  Superintendent  of  Common 
Schools,  then  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  then  by  a  Dep¬ 
uty  Superintendent,  and  more  recently,  and  never  more 
ably  than  now,  by  a  distinct  authority,  the  Superintend¬ 
ent  of  Public  Instruction.  The  State  has  preferred  this 
division  of  powers,  and  there  is  no  clash  or  friction  be¬ 
tween  the  two  departments.  Soon  after  my  election  as 
regent  it  seemed  to  me  that  a  return  was  desirable  to 
the  original  design  of  Hamilton,  and  that  the  relations 
of  the  State  to  education  should  be  intrusted  to  a  sin¬ 
gle  authority.  But,  after  long  observation  and  reflec¬ 
tion,  I  have  come  to  doubt  whether  Hamilton  himself 
would  now  advise  a  change.  As  a  statesman  Hamilton 
was  of  the  school  of  Burke,  which  is  distinctively  that 
of  the  English  political  genius.  In  his  plea  for  concil¬ 
iation  with  the  colonies,  Burke  said  to  Parliament,  with 
that  magnificence  of  utterance  which  has  made  his 
great  speeches  not  only  historical  events,  but  splendid 
possessions  of  literature,  the  question  is  not  whether 
we  have  the  right  to  tax  the  colonies,  for  right  is  a 
phrase  upon  which  men  differ,  but,  under  all  the  colonial 


436  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

circumstances  and  conditions,  is  it  wise  to  tax  them 
or  to  allege  an  abstract  right  which  it  is  inexpedient 
to  enforce?  Parliament  thought  it  was,  and  Daniel 
Webster  wisely  said,  therefore,  that  the  American  Rev¬ 
olution  was  fought  upon  a  preamble. 

The  relations  of  the  State  to  education  in  New  York 
have  been  determined,  according  to  the  genius  of  our 
race  and  of  Anglo-Saxon  institutions,  by  experience 
and  the  sense  of  the  public  welfare.  In  accordance 
with  that  genius  they  should  be  changed  or  modified 
only  to  secure  a  greater  benefit,  not  to  satisfy  consist¬ 
ency  or  a  logical  requirement.  Abstractly,  Hamilton 
might  say,  a  single  agency  would  seem  to  be  better 
adapted  for  the  management  of  those  relations  ;  but  the 
practical  question  with  an  existing  situation  is  not  how 
it  might  have  been  different,  but  whether,  as  it  is,  change 
would  improve  it.  The  problem  of  what  might  have 
been  is  always  insoluble. 

The  State  has  established  a  system  of  supervision  for 
colleges  and  academies  and  higher  institutions  of  learn¬ 
ing.  It  has  been  tested  by  long  experience,  and  it  can¬ 
not  wisely  be  changed  until  it  is  shown  that  a  proposed 
change,  under  all  the  circumstances,  would  secure  a  bet¬ 
ter  performance  of  the  duty.  But  I  doubt  if  any  de¬ 
partment  of  the  State  service  is  more  efficiently,  eco¬ 
nomically,  and  satisfactorily  discharged  than  that  which 
is  confided  to  the  regents  of  the  University.  Your 
house  may  be  of  odd  design  and  grotesque  propor¬ 
tions,  lacking  both  unity  and  symmetry ;  but  if  it  be 
comfortable,  spacious,  and  convenient,  if  some  romance 
of  time,  some  charm  of  tradition,  invest  it,  you  would 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  437 

be  hardly  a  wise  man  if  you  pulled  it  down  merely  be¬ 
cause  originally  it  might  have  been  a  Palladian  mansion 
or  modelled  from  the  Parthenon. 

While  the  original  powers  of  the  University  were 
great,  the  satisfaction  of  the  State  with  the  service  of 
the  regents  is  shown  by  the  enlargement  of  those  pow¬ 
ers.  In  1846  they  were  made  trustees  of  the  State  Li¬ 
brary  and  of  certain  local  law  libraries.  The  next  year 
they  were  created  trustees  of  the  State  Museum  of  Nat¬ 
ural  History.  They  are  authorized,  at  their  discretion, 
to  confer  the  highest  honorary  degrees,  to  appoint 
boards  of  medical  examiners,  and  on  their  recommen¬ 
dation  to  confer  the  degree  of  M.D.  They  hold  ex¬ 
aminations  and  grant  certificates  preliminary  to  legal 
studies,  and  in  all  the  academies  they  hold  exami¬ 
nations  which  determine  the  standards  of  academic  in¬ 
struction  in  New  York.  They  are  custodians  of  the 
historical  documents  of  the  State  and  of  certain  legis¬ 
lative  documents.  They  maintain  a  duplicate  depart¬ 
ment  of  documents,  and  conduct  the  publication  and 
distribution  of  State  works  of  the  highest  scientific 
character,  and  they  have  charge  of  the  investigation 
of  the  condition  of  the  State  boundaries  and  of  restor¬ 
ing  the  monuments  along  the  line.  Finally,  after  more 
than  a  century,  the  Legislature  of  1889  attested  the  con¬ 
fidence  of  the  State  in  the  discretion  and  fidelity  of  the 
regents  by  the  passage  of  an  act  defining  the  purpose, 
powers,  and  organization  of  the  University,  and  still 
further  confirming  and  enlarging  its  scope  and  author¬ 
ity.  From  all  the  institutions  subject  to  their  visita¬ 
tion  the  regents  may  require  an  annual  report  under 


/ 


438  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

oath,  and  for  sufficient  cause  they  may  alter,  amend, 
or  repeal  the  charter  of  any  institution  of  the  Univer¬ 
sity,  that  is  to  say,  of  any  incorporated  college,  univer¬ 
sity,  academy,  school,  library,  or  museum  in  the  State 
of  New  York. 

It  is  plain  from  this  sketch  that  the  University  of 
the  State  of  New  York  is  wholly  unlike  the  institutions 
generally  known  as  universities.  It  is  not,  as  its  name 
seems  to  import,  a  school  of  instruction  with  the  tra¬ 
ditions,  associations,  and  imperishable  local  charms  of 
personal  feeling  and  romance  with  which  a  college  is 
invested.  It  is  not  a  western  Bologna  or  Salamanca 
or  Paris,  nor  a  Berlin,  Heidelberg,  or  Bonn.  It  is,  in 
fact,  the  sole  example  of  what  President  Gilman  de¬ 
scribes  as  a  supervisory  university.  Its  powers  in¬ 
clude  the  crowning  authority  of  the  familiar  univer¬ 
sity,  that  of  conferring  degrees,  but  they  do  not  include 
the  influence  of  college  residence  and  the  opportunity 
of  a  faculty  of  instruction.  Its  chancellor  is  not  the 
president  of  a  body  of  teachers,  but  the  chairman  of  a 
board  of  trustees. 

Undoubtedly  the  name  university  has  been  the 
source  of  much  confusion  and  perplexity.  Universi¬ 
ties  are  of  many  kinds,  but  the  general  significance  of 
the  name  is  indisputable  and  determined.  Some  of  my 
predecessors  have  indulged  a  pleasing  fancy  of  an  or¬ 
ganic  resemblance  between  this  institution  and  the  older 
European  universities.  But  this  seems  to  me  wholly 
illusory  and,  under  the  circumstances,  mischievous.  Our 
institution  is  possessed  of  powers  so  large  and  definite, 
and  its  opportunities  of  service  to  education  and  to 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  439 

the  State  are  so  extraordinary,  that  it  need  not  foster 
any  illusions  nor  acquiesce  in  any  pleasing  miscon¬ 
ception.  To  speak  of  a  European  university  of  the 
older  type,  of  Salerno,  of  Pavia,  of  Paris,  of  Oxford,  is 
to  summon  the  vision  of  a  great  school  thronged  by 
multitudes  of  students,  and  taught  by  famous  profess¬ 
ors.  Bologna  was  distinctively  a  school  of  law;  Saler¬ 
no,  of  medicine ;  Paris,  of  philosophy  or  the  arts ;  but 
they  were  first  of  all  schools  of  instruction.  Great 
teachers  made  great  universities  by  attracting  great 
hosts  of  pupils  and  investing  the  school  with  the  au¬ 
thority  and  renown  of  superior  scholarship.  The  emi¬ 
nence  of  teachers  is  the  essential  characteristic  which, 
in  the  general  understanding  of  the  word,  a  university 
has  never  lost. 

The  English  university,  which,  I  think,  our  own  is 
thought  to  resemble,  differs  somewhat  from  those  of  the 
Continent.  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  from  whose  revered 
shades  so  many  of  the  earliest  fathers  of  this  country 
came — as  the  principal  of  the  youngest  college  at  Ox¬ 
ford  recently  said,  “  Puritan  Cambridge  was  the  mother 
of  New  England  ” — are  clusters  of  venerable  and  his¬ 
toric  buildings  standing  in  an  atmosphere  of  calm, 
within  the  pensive  shadow  of  immemorial  trees.  An 
English  university  is  a  system  of  adjacent  colleges, 
separate  in  discipline  and,  within  a  certain  range,  in  in¬ 
struction,  but  united  in  a  common  life,  a  common  fame, 
a  proud  and  ancient  tradition.  Milton  was  of  Christ’s, 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  of  Trinity,  Gray  of  Pembroke,  but 
they  were  all  of  Cambridge.  Wolsey  was  of  Magdalen, 
Hooker  of  Corpus  Christi,  Shelley  of  University  College, 


440  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

but  their  fame  is  Oxford’s.  Each  college  has  its  tutors 
and  its  deans,  its  own  library  and  chapel,  its  lecture- 
rooms  and  dining-hall,  but  all  members  of  all  the  col¬ 
leges  are  members  of  the  University  and  subject  to  its 
government  and  laws.  They  all  attend  the  lectures  of 
the  University  professors.  The  University  holds  the 
public  examinations,  the  University  confers  the  degrees. 
The  mainspring  of  the  system  as  regards  education, 
says  Goldwin  Smith,  formerly  professor  of  history  at 
Oxford,  lies  in  the  University  examinations  for  the  de¬ 
gree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts.  The  distinction  of  Philippa 
Fawcett  this  summer  is  not  that  of  a  college  at  Cam¬ 
bridge  ;  it  is  that  she  has  surpassed  the  senior  wrang¬ 
ler,  the  best  mathematician  of  all  the  colleges,  and  won 
the  highest  honor  of  the  University  and  the  year. 

If  the  University  of  the  State  of  New  York  should 
hold  examinations  for  the  Bachelor’s  degree,  undoubt¬ 
edly  so  far  it  would  exercise  a  power  like  that  of  Ox¬ 
ford.  But  it  would  not  be  the  students  of  Syracuse  and 
Hobart  and  St.  Lawrence,  of  Ingham,  St.  Johns,  and  St. 
Stephen’s,  whom  it  would  examine  ;  and  Columbia,  Cor¬ 
nell,  Union,  and  Hamilton  would  not  be  related  in  the 
University  of  the  State  like  Baliol,  Merton,  and  Oriel 
at  Oxford,  or  Trinity,  Caius,  and  Kings  at  Cambridge. 
It  is  but  the  illusion  of  a  name  which  seems  to  identify 
with  the  English  universities  and  to  invest  with  their 
romantic  glamour  the  University  of  the  State  of  New 
York.  The  University  requires  no  residence,  for  it  has 
no  halls.  It  gives  no  instruction,  for  it  has  no  teachers. 
It  holds  no  examinations  of  the  students  of  its  colleges, 
for  its  colleges  prescribe  their  own  examinations  and 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  441 

confer  their  own  degrees.  Let  us  renounce  the  unnec¬ 
essary  fiction  to  which  much  misapprehension  concern¬ 
ing  this  University  is  due.  It  is  the  bright  will-o’-the- 
wisp  of  a  name,  the  bewildering  endeavor  to  find  some¬ 
where  on  the  heights  of  the  Hudson  or  the  meadows  of 
the  Mohawk  or  the  Susquehanna  a  visible  and  storied 
pile  of  ivied  wall  and  ancient  tower,  some  loitering 
group  of  Sidneys  glad  to  learn,  some  Wickliffe,  More, 
or  Newton  ripe  to  teach,  but  an  endeavor  everywhere 
baffled  and  vain,  that  makes  the  regents  the  futile  po¬ 
tentates  of  a  shadowy  realm,  the  impotent  masters  of  a 
school  of  ghosts. 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  in  busy  streets  and  peaceful 
fields  and  on  happy  heights  of  the  imperial  State  are 
colleges  belonging  to  the  University  and  quick  with  the 
college  life  and  traditions  at  once  so  dear  and  so  influ¬ 
ential  in  thousands  of  hearts  and  lives.  But  the  Uni¬ 
versity  itself  is  invested  with  no  more  romance  than  the 
Department  of  Public  Instruction.  It  is  the  agency  by 
which  the  State  conducts  its  relations  with  the  whole 
system  of  secondary  education  in  the  commonwealth. 
Yet  it  is  much  more  than  a  mere  supervisory  agency. 
Like  that  kindred  department  it  has  two  great  but  dif¬ 
ferent  functions.  One  is  the  management  of  the  im¬ 
mense  system  of  detail  of  academic  administration  ;  the 
other  comprehends  its  noblest  public  duty  and  respon¬ 
sibility  as  the  stimulating  heart  of  a  constantly  enlarg¬ 
ing  and  progressive  educational  life.  The  University 
acts  directly  upon  the  academies,  indirectly  upon  the 
colleges.  Its  action  upon  the  academies  lies  in  the 
system  of  preliminary  and  advanced  examinations  and 


442  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

the  detailed  discussions  of  the  convocation.  This  act¬ 
ion,  if  vigilant  and  wise,  assures  the  constant  eleva¬ 
tion  of  the  standard  of  academic  instruction,  making 
the  distribution  of  State  aid  dependent  upon  conform¬ 
ity  to  the  requirements  of  rigid  but  reasonable  exami¬ 
nations. 

The  value  of  this  service  of  the  examinations  is  at¬ 
tested  by  my  own  experience  as  a  regent.  In  the  year 
1863,  the  year  before  the  establishment  of  the  prelimi¬ 
nary  examinations  and  fifteen  years  before  the  advanced 
examinations  were  instituted,  the  first  convocation  was 
held,  a  deliberative  assembly  of  the  officers  of  the  col¬ 
leges  and  academies  of  the  State,  which  has  now  grown 
to  this  important  and  imposing  congress.  At  that  con¬ 
vocation  I  asked  the  teacher  of  one  of  the  largest  acad¬ 
emies  how  many  pupils  he  had  sent  up  to  college  that 
year.  He  answered  twelve ;  and  when  I  asked  if  they 
went  to  New  York  colleges,  he  answered,  “Ten  to  New 
York  and  one  each  to  Harvard  and  Yale,  and  I  am 
prouder  of  those  two  than  of  the  other  ten.”  Those 
few  words  were  a  comprehensive  and  exhaustive  com¬ 
mentary  on  the  condition  of  academic  education  in  New 
York.  That  was  twenty-seven  years  ago.  But  I  do  not 
believe  that  there  is  a  single  principal  in  the  convoca¬ 
tion  to-day  who  need  make  such  a  statement  or  who 
would  be  disposed  to  make  it,  and  the  difference  of  the 
situation  is  due  to  the  initiative  of  the  University.  De¬ 
voted,  accomplished,  and  able  principals  throughout  the 
State  might  raise  the  standard  in  single  academies. 
But  the  comprehension  of  all  the  academies  in  itself 
enables  the  University  to  raise  the  standard  of  the 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  443 

whole  academic  system,  and  to  advance  the  character 
and  renown  of  secondary  education  in  New  York. 

The  influence  of  the  University  upon  the  colleges  lies 
in  this  heightened  standard  of  preliminary  academic  in¬ 
struction,  providing  for  the  college  more  advanced  and 
riper  pupils.  It  lies  also  in  the  deliberations  of  this 
convocation,  which  is  an  assembly  unknown  in  other 
States.  In  no  other  State  do  teachers  and  officers  of 
colleges  and  academies  meet  annually  to  confer  upon 
the  condition  and  progress,  the  aims  and  principles,  the 
spirit  and  methods,  of  secondary  and  higher  education. 
The  comparison  of  experience,  the  result  of  individual 
thought,  the  discussion  of  experimental  measures,  the 
consideration  of  academic  and  college  policy  in  its  larg¬ 
est  sense — for  instance,  the  fair  demand  and  due  de¬ 
gree  of  physical  culture  in  the  college  course,  its  condi¬ 
tions  and  relations ;  all  radical  departures  from  ancient 
tradition  such  as  shortening  the  collegiate  term  now 
under  consideration  by  Harvard  and  Columbia  ;  the  rela¬ 
tive  importance  of  the  classic  and  the  scientific  curricu¬ 
lum  in  the  college  course ;  degrees  and  the  suitable  au¬ 
thority  to  grant  them — indeed,  the  whole  range  of  the 
imperial  and  vital  public  interest  of  secondary  educa¬ 
tion  is  the  province  of  this  convocation.  But  its  actual 
influence  upon  the  colleges  does  not  depend  upon  the 
opportunity,  but  upon  the  use  of  the  opportunity.  Co¬ 
lumbia,  Cornell,  Union,  and  Colgate,  Vassar  and  Hamil¬ 
ton  and  B.ochester  and  all  their  sister  schools  will  heed 
when  they  hear  what  is  worth  heeding.  The  University 
in  convocation  will  affect  the  college  policy  when  it 
speaks  with  an  authority  which  is  not  perfunctory,  but 


444  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

of  a  wisdom  that  is  felt  to  be  superior.  The  voice  of 
Harvard  commands  the  attention  of  the  college  world, 
not  because  it  is  our  oldest  university,  but  because 
experience  has  shown  that  it  speaks  only  after  wise 
observation  and  careful  reflection.  A  thousand  smat- 
terers  may  speculate  unheard  upon  language  or  upon 
a  Greek  pediment  or  particle  or  a  Latin  phrase ;  but 
when  Whitney  speaks  at  Yale,  Goodwin  or  Norton 
at  Harvard,  Drisler  at  Columbia,  Lincoln  or  Hark- 
ness  at  Brown,  every  student  in  every  college  turns  to 
listen. 

The  influence  of  this  University  upon  the  colleges  of 
the  State  is  now  possible  in  a  much  more  direct  and 
fundamental  form  than  ever  before.  Without  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  college  residence,  which  I  have  described  as 
integral  in  the  familiar  conception  of  a  university,  and 
which  many  a  graduate  tenderly  feels  to  have  been  the 
chief  value  of  his  college  course,  this  institution  may 
now  bring  the  benefits  of  college  instruction  and  the 
incitements  of  the  collegiate  degree  to  every  studious 
youth  in  the  State  of  New  York.  It  may  do  for  every 
such  youth  what  the  London  University,  which  has  no 
“  distant  spires,”  no  “  antique  towers,”  does  for  every 
young  man  who  submits  to  its  examinations.  The  lect¬ 
urers  of  the  London  University,  indeed,  are  a  body  of 
the  most  eminent  masters  in  letters  and  science.  But 
it  does  not  require  residence  in  any  particular  place  nor 
attendance  upon  the  lectures  or  recitations  of  any  spe¬ 
cial  teachers ;  it  requires  for  its  degree  only  success  in 
its  examinations.  But  those  examinations  are  thorough 
and  severe,  and  the  degree  of  the  London  University 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  445 

is  a  certificate  of  scholarly  attainment  not  less  than  that 
of  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 

The  authority  of  this  University  to  extend  the  range 
of  collegiate  instruction  and  the  benefit  of  the  collegiate 
degrees  is  not  derived  from  its  powers  of  visitation  and 
inspection,  but  from  the  law  which  authorizes  the  re¬ 
gents  “  to  maintain  lectures  connected  with  higher  edu¬ 
cation  in  this  State/’  and  to  “  establish  examinations  as 
to  attainments  in  learning,  and  award  and  confer  suita¬ 
ble  certificates,  diplomas,  and  degrees  on  persons  who 
satisfactorily  meet  the  requirements  prescribed.”  Here 
is  full  authority  to  undertake  the  work  which  is  called 
university  extension,  a  work  not  unknown  in  this  coun¬ 
try,  and  which  in  England  has  produced  remarkable 
results.  By  lectures  and  correspondence  and  counsel 
the  English  universities  stretch  their  beneficent  hands 
throughout  the  kingdom  and  everywhere  quicken  into 
life  dormant  or  aspiring  intelligence  or  capacity.  The 
polytechnic  institutes  in  London,  the  ragged  schools, 
the  People’s  Palace,  with  the  University  extension  and 
the  civil-service  examinations,  are  the  hopeful  signs  of 
English  civilization  to-day,  like  the  penal,  prison,  and 
sanitary  reforms  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  They 
all  reveal  the  activity  of  that  deepening  human  sympa¬ 
thy  which  has  heard  in  the  garden  of  the  world  the 
voice  not  to  be  evaded,  “Where  is  Abel,  thy  brother?” 
which  knows  that  hiding  will  not  avail,  and  that  the 
question  must  be  answered. 

This  power  of  maintaining  lectures,  holding  examina¬ 
tions,  and  granting  degrees,  without  residence  under  its 
jurisdiction  or  instruction  by  teachers  of  its  own,  while 


446  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

it  brings  this  University  so  far  directly  into  the  frater¬ 
nity  of  colleges,  invests  it  with  immense  responsibility. 
Plainly  an  unwise  exercise  of  the  power  would  precipi¬ 
tate  a  jealous  conflict  between  the  University  and  the 
colleges.  The  power  might  be  grossly  misused  by 
cheapening  the  degree,  to  the  detriment  of  sound  learn¬ 
ing,  the  degradation  of  higher  education,  and  the  shame 
of  the  University  and  the  State.  But  great  powers  are 
granted  to  those  who  have  shown  themselves  worthy 
of  great  responsibilities,  and  there  need  be  no  more  ap¬ 
prehension  of  an  abuse  of  the  authority  of  examina¬ 
tions  and  degrees  by  the  University  than  by  Columbia 
or  Union  or  Cornell  or  any  university  or  college  in  the 
State  which  now  holds  similar  powers.  Any  exercise 
of  this  great  authority  which  should  belittle  and  debase 
instead  of  enhancing  the  value  of  a  degree,  would  jus¬ 
tify  the  withdrawal  from  the  University  of  a  trust  which 
it  had  betrayed. 

The  fitting  time  and  method  for  the  exercise  of  this 
power  should  be  determined  with  great  deliberation. 
The  purpose  would  be  the  extension  of  the  incitement 
to  higher  study  which  is  offered  by  the  opportunity  of 
securing  a  degree.  Collegiate  residence  is  within  the 
reach  of  comparatively  few  of  the  American  youth  who 
with  opportunity  would  eagerly  qualify  themselves  for 
a  degree.  There  is  no  nobler,  more  touching,  or  more 
characteristic  American  story  than  that  of  the  family 
which  gladly  spares  its  comfort,  which  stints  and  al¬ 
most  starves,  that  the  studious  son  may  go  to  college. 
It  is  a  generous  sacrifice,  by  which  the  family,  the  boy, 
and  the  country  are  all  gainers.  This  is  the  spirit  which 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  447 

has  made  us  what  we  are.  But  many  such  sons,  una¬ 
ble  to  go  to  college,  master  in  solitary  study  the  knowl¬ 
edge  which  the  college  certifies  with  a  degree.  If  the 
University  can  bring  the  degree  to  that  solitary  stu¬ 
dent,  ought  it  to  be  withheld  for  want  of  residence? 
If  the  degree  be  regarded  as  a  certificate  of  attainment 
in  study  acquired  in  four  years,  ought  it  to  be  denied  to 
equal  attainments  acquired  in  three  or  two  years?  If, 
again,  the  Bachelor’s  degree  now  certifies  a  certain  per¬ 
sonal  experience  and  training  derived  from  collegiate 
residence  not  less  than  proficiency  in  study,  should 
there  be  a  new  degree  for  the  external  student,  who, 
like  Charles  Lamb,  has  not  fed  upon  “  the  sweet  food 
of  academic  institution  ”  ?  These  are  questions  which 
should  be  answered. 

Yet  in  such  new  paths  our  steps  may  well  be  wary. 
Their  besetting  dangers  are  superficiality,  a  counterfeit 
scholarship,  a  shallow  smattering  instead  of  thorough 
knowledge,  mental  effeminacy,  and  smirking  intellectual 
pretence.  If,  indeed,  to  extend  the  University  were 
necessarily  to  attenuate  and  lower  the  standard  of  the 
education  it  represents,  extension  should  be  left  to 
other  agencies.  But,  with  due  care,  I  see  no  more  rea¬ 
son  for  apprehending  this  result  than  that  the  exterior 
examinations  of  Harvard  and  Yale  will  be  less  rigorous 
than  those  within  the  college  halls. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  is  plain  that  while  this 
University  is  like  no  other,  and  although  its  name  may 
easily  perplex  speculation,  it  is  an  educational  institu¬ 
tion  of  vast  powers  and  opportunities,  and  consequently 
of  extraordinary  responsibilities.  Like  all  such  public 


448  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

trusts,  its  administration  may  decline  into  a  mere  per¬ 
functory  observance  of  routine  or  it  may  produce  the 
highest  public  benefit.  The  choice  between  these  al¬ 
ternatives  will  depend  upon  the  hearty  co-operation 
both  in  spirit  and  purpose,  of  the  central  authority  and 
of  the  widespread  and  independent  collegiate  and  aca¬ 
demic  membership  of  the  University.  While  the  re¬ 
gents  are  the  trustees  elected  by  the  representatives 
of  the  people  who  confer  a  trust,  this  convocation  is 
the  representative  body  of  the  various  institutions  of 
which  the  University  consists.  This  is  the  congress  of 
higher  education  in  New  York.  It  should  speak  the 
thought  of  New  York  upon  this  cardinal  interest  of  a 
free  country,  and  to  its  deliberations  the  whole  coun¬ 
try  should  turn  to  ascertain  whether,  upon  the  funda¬ 
mental  questions  of  educational  life  and  progress,  it  has 
anything  to  learn  from  the  Empire  State,  or  whether 
New  York  is  imperial  only  in  extent  and  population,  in 
natural  resources  and  material  prosperity. 

The  credential — I  might  say,  in  view  of  the  ultimate 
purpose  of  the  convocation,  the  highest  credential — of 
every  member  is  not  derived  from  his  office  as  a  teach¬ 
er,  but  from  his  profound  conviction  as  a  man  of  the 
grandeur  of  the  intellectual  life.  As  an  American  cit¬ 
izen,  he  comes  here  with  no  deference  to  any  other  in¬ 
terest.  The  scholar  bows  to  the  superior  intelligence, 
if  such  it  be,  but  not  to  the  money  of  Croesus.  Leigh 
Hunt  said,  with  fine  democracy  of  feeling,  “  I  thought 
that  my  Horace  and  Demosthenes  gave  me  a  right  to 
sit  at  table  with  any  man,  and  I  think  so  still.”  If  our 
convictions  did  not  assure  us  of  the  essential  value  of 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  449 

intellectual  pursuits  and  possessions,  history  constantly 
illustrates  it.  It  is  a  pleasant  anecdote  of  the  banker 
Fugger,  who  received  Charles  V.  as  his  guest  in  his  pal¬ 
ace  at  Augsburg,  and  lighted  a  fire  with  Charles’s  bond 
of  a  million  florins  to  warm  his  majesty’s  hands.  In  an 
hour  the  fire  was  out,  and  banker  and  emperor  and  em¬ 
pire  are  long  since  gone.  But  John  Milton,  the  poor, 
blind  school-master,  kindled  an  immortal  flame  of  poesy 
which  still  cheers  the  human  heart.  “  The  garners  of 
Sicily,”  said  Lowell  to  the  sons  of  Harvard  on  the  two 
hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the 
college — “  the  garners  of  Sicily  are  empty  now,  but  the 
bees  from  all  climes  still  fetch  honey  from  the  tiny 
garden-plots  of  Theocritus.” 

We  never  tire  of  our  fond  and  familiar  tale  of  Ameri¬ 
can  progress  and  development.  We  are  nationally  a 
little  moon-struck  by  that  resplendent  orb  which 

“nightly  to  the  listening  earth 
Repeats  the  story  of  her  birth.” 

We  cannot  enough  recount  the  miracles  of  our  growth. 
In  the  very  first  year  of  the  century,  when  they  were 
but  beginning,  Gouverneur  Morris  said,  “  Calculation 
outruns  fancy  and  fact  baffles  calculation.”  We  are 
naturally  dazzled  by  the  splendors  of  our  inventive  gen¬ 
ius,  by  our  industrial  accumulations,  and  the  marvellous 
display  of  human  energy  that  within  so  short  a  time 
has  transformed  a  trackless  continent  into  the  smooth 
highway  of  triumphant  civilization,  outdoing  the  Ro¬ 
man  empire  in  the  world-wide  plenitude  of  its  power 
by  as  much  as  human  freedom  and  happiness  are  better 
I. — 29 


450  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

than  human  subjection  and  mere  dominion.  But,  amid 
the  exaltation  and  coronation  of  material  success,  let 
this  University  here  annually  announce  in  words  and 
deeds  the  dignity  and  superiority  of  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  life,  and  strengthen  itself  to  resist  the  insidi¬ 
ous  invasion  of  that  life  by  the  superb  and  seductive 
spirit  of  material  prosperity.  It  is  a  spirit  which  spares 
neither  trade  nor  profession,  neither  politics  nor  morals. 
Let  us  withstand  it  by  the  spirit  which  we  cultivate 
here,  the  clear  perception  of  the  true  end  of  education 
that  inspires  our  work,  whether  in  college,  school,  mu¬ 
seum,  academy,  or  library.  “Universities,”  said  John 
Stuart  Mill  twenty-three  years  ago,  “  universities  are 
not  intended  to  teach  the  knowledge  required  to  fit 
men  for  some  special  mode  of  gaining  their  livelihood. 
.  .  .  Education  makes  a  man  a  more  intelligent  shoe¬ 
maker,  if  that  be  his  occupation,  but  not  by  teaching 
him  to  make  shoes ;  it  does  so  by  the  mental  exercise 
it  gives  and  the  habits  it  impresses.” 

The  highest  gift  of  education  is  not  the  mastery 
of  sciences,  for  which  special  schools  are  provided,  but 
noble  living,  generous  character,  the  spiritual  delight 
which  springs  from  familiarity  with  the  loftiest  ideals 
of  the  human  mind,  the  spiritual  power  which  saves 
every  generation  from  the  intoxication  of  its  own  suc¬ 
cess.  A  triumphant  prosperity  and  a  socialism  which 
anticipates  the  millennium  from  legislative  acts  and  in¬ 
genious  organization,  forgetting  that  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  within  you,  instinctively  aim  to  bend  the  col¬ 
lege  to  their  own  uses.  They  tempt  it  to  train  chem¬ 
ists,  engineers,  metallurgists,  specialists  in  every  science, 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK  45 1 

not  for  the  higher,  but  for  the  lower  value  of  knowl¬ 
edge  ;  not  to  supply  delights  more  precious  than  riches, 
but  to  teach  the  open  sesame  of  a  surer  and  swifter  way 
to  wealth.  But  even  in  literature  it  is  a  poor  education 
which  ends  in  accurate  grammar  and  precision  of  metres 
instead  of  a  love  of  letters,  and  Agassiz  spoke  for  the 
scholar  in  science  when  he  was  besought  for  the  reward 
of  a  fortune  to  enter  the  service  of  a  company,  and  an¬ 
swered,  “  I  have  no  time  to  make  money.” 

You  will  not  understand  me  as  depreciating  special 
training  for  the  readier  development  and  finer  adapta¬ 
tion  of  natural  resources  and  natural  forces  to  the  wel¬ 
fare  of  man.  I  am  speaking  only  of  the  spirit  in  which 
the  cause  committed  to  us  should  be  served,  and  of  the 
life,  not  the  learning,  which  is  the  consummate  flower 
of  education.  I  have  heard  it  said  that  liberal  educa¬ 
tion  does  not  promote  success  in  life.  A  chimney¬ 
sweep  might  say  so.  Without  education  he  could 
gain  the  chimney -top,  poor  little  blackamoor!  bran¬ 
dish  his  brush,  and  sing  his  song  of  escape  from  soot 
to  sunshine.  But  the  ideal  of  success  measures  the 
worth  of  the  remark  that  it  may  be  attained  without 
liberal  education.  If  the  accumulation  of  money  be 
the  standard,  we  must  admit  that  a  man  might  make 
a  fortune  in  a  hundred  ways  without  education.  But 
he  could  make  a  fortune,  also,  without  purity  of  life 
or  noble  character  or  religious  faith.  A  man  can  pay 
much  too  high  a  price  for  money,  and  not  every  man 
who  buys  it  knows  its  relative  value  with  other  posses¬ 
sions.  Undoubtedly  Ezra  Cornell  and  Matthew  Vassar 
did  not  go  to  college,  and  they  succeeded  in  life.  But 


452  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

their  success,  what  was  it  ?  Where  do  you  see  it  now  ? 
Surely  not  in  their  riches,  but  in  the  respect  that  ten¬ 
derly  cherishes  their  memory  because,  knowing  its  ines¬ 
timable  value,  they  gave  to  others  the  opportunity  of 
education  which  had  been  denied  to  them.  Let  us 
make  their  lofty  spirit  the  spirit  of  the  University.  Re¬ 
membering  that  the  great  ministry  of  education  is  not 
to  make  the  body  more  comfortable,  but  the  soul  hap¬ 
pier,  may  the  University,  in  all  its  departments  and  ac¬ 
tivities,  cherish  and  promote  education,  not  for  its  lower 
uses,  but  for  its  higher  influences. 


XIX 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE  KINGSTON  ACADEMY,  KING¬ 
STON,  N.  Y.,  JUNE  25,  1891 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 


No  citizen  of  New  York  can  come  without  emotion 
to  this  ancient  town.  Its  charm  does  not  lie  only  or 
chiefly  in  its  neighborhood  to  the  stately  stream  of 
which  we  are  justly  proud,  the  most  historic  of  Amer¬ 
ican  rivers,  but  in  the  contribution  which  Kingston  has 
made  to  its  historic  riches.  Here  the  constituted  State 
of  New  York  began.  Here  its  Revolutionary  fathers 
John  Jay,  Gouverneur  Morris,  Robert  R.  Livingston, 
John  Morin  Scott,  James  Duane,  Abraham  Yates,  John 
Sloss  Hobart,  with  their  brethren,  organized  for  New 
York  the  independence  which  the  united  colonies  were 
winning,  each  for  itself  and  all  for  the  whole.  Hither 
from  the  field  came  George  Clinton  long  enough  to 
take  the  oath  as  the  first  governor  of  the  State,  then 
returned  to  camp  to  withstand,  in  vain,  the  advance  of 
the  British,  whose  fiery  hand  of  vengeance  fell  upon 
Kingston,  which  was  then  the  third  community  in  size 
and  importance  in  the  commonwealth.  The  tale  of 
those  days  is  heroic  and  inspiring,  and  in  the  proud 
story  the  part  of  this  town  is  secure.  Seven  cities 
claimed  the  glory  of  the  birthplace  of  Homer.  But  no 
rival  contests  with  Kingston  the  renown  that  invests 


456  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

the  birthplace  of  the  first,  free,  popular  constitution  of 
the  State  of  New  York. 

The  story  cannot  be  told  too  often  nor  the  names  of 
the  fathers  of  the  State  become  too  familiar.  At  the 
celebration  of  the  centennial  anniversary  of  the  surren¬ 
der  of  Burgoyne — another  of  the  imperishable  traditions 
of  the  Hudson — Governor  Horatio  Seymour  said  to 
me  that  New  England  had  done  wisely  in  always  care¬ 
fully  celebrating  her  great  events  and  commemorating 
her  great  men.  I  could  not  help  replying  that  New 
England  was  fortunate  in  producing  great  men  who 
naturally  did  great  deeds  worthy  of  commemoration. 
Such  men  and  their  deeds  are  the  precious  treasures  of 
every  community,  and  no  community  is  wise  which 
suffers  the  renown  of  its  heroes  and  its  heroic  actions 
to  sink  into  neglect  and  forgetfulness.  Their  com¬ 
memoration  stimulates  public  spirit,  and  public  spirit, 
not  private  wealth,  is  the  mainspring  of  the  American 
Republic.  Governor  Seymour  was  evidently  contrast¬ 
ing  New  York  and  New  England.  It  was  the  implica¬ 
tion  of  his  words  that  the  annals  of  New  York  showed 
men  as  eminent  and  events  as  important  as  those  of 
New  England ;  but  that  the  State,  with  the  carelessness 
of  greatness,  was  heedless  of  their  commemoration.  No 
New-Yorker  more  zealously  or  more  constantly  and  in¬ 
telligently  than  Governor  Seymour  asserted  the  superi¬ 
ority  of  the  State.  He  delighted  to  declare  that  the 
first  constitution  of  New  York  was  wiser  than  all  the 
other  early  State  constitutions,  and  to  trace  its  superi¬ 
ority  back  to  the  Hollanders,  whom  he  celebrated  as 
the  foremost  of  all  civilized  people  when  they  settled 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  457 

New  York.  But  he  confessed  the  neglect  by  the  State 
of  its  own  history,  and  such  neglect  is  not  compatible 
with  the  highest  public  spirit. 

And,  if  the  cultivation  of  public  spirit  be  a  patriotic 
duty,  is  it  not  especially  the  duty  of  New  York,  for  the 
very  reason  that  the  conditions  of  the  State  from  the 
beginning  have  not  been  favorable  to  its  development  ? 
Homogeneity  of  population  is  one  of  the  cardinal  condi¬ 
tions  of  an  active  public  spirit,  and  New  York  has  been 
always  the  most  cosmopolitan  of  American  States.  The 
impulse  of  its  original  settlement  was  commercial,  and 
the  commercial  spirit  gave  its  beginnings  a  good-natured 
liberality  and  tolerance  which  were  not  found  among 
the  English  pilgrims  to  a  strange  country  who,  for  the 
sake  of  conscience,  had  abandoned  their  dear  mother¬ 
land  and  all  its  fond  and  familiar  traditions.  The  set¬ 
tlers  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  with  relentless  vigor  of  leg¬ 
islation,  sought  to  found  a  Puritan  commonwealth,  and 
the  magistrate  warned  those  who  were  not  Puritans  to 
settle  elsewhere.  But  the  Hollanders  invited  men  of 
all  nations  and  creeds  to  settle  in  New  Netherlands. 
Before  the  city  of  New  York  was  known  by  that  name, 
the  historian  tells  us  that  thirteen  languages  were 
spoken  in  its  streets.  The  report  of  a  gun  fired  in  the 
harbor  would  have  echoed  among  half  a  dozen  little 
communities  around  the  bay,  sprung  from  as  many  dif¬ 
ferent  nationalities,  dwelling  in  amity.  But  in  Plymouth 
or  in  Boston  or  Salem  a  voice  of  alien  tone  would 
have  arrested  the  jealous  attention  of  the  authorities, 
and  the  hapless  stranger  would  have  been  summoned 
to  explain  his  heretical  accent.  We  may  not  blame  the 


45  8  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

Puritans.  It  was  sifted  grain  that  made  New  England, 
grain  sifted  by  profound  conviction,  by  unquailing  cour¬ 
age,  by  stern  self-sacrifice,  by  heroic  persistence — sifted 
grain  which  has  sprung  into  the  most  marvellous  har¬ 
vest  in  history. 

But  while  every  early  New-Englander  was  but  an  Old- 
Englander  made  over,  the  fathers  of  New  York  were  of 
various  blood.  When  the  convention  sat  here  and  or¬ 
ganized  the  State,  Jay  was  by  descent  a  Frenchman, 
Morris  a  Welshman,  Livingston  a  Scotchman,  Clinton 
an  Irishman,  Herkimer  of  Oriskany  a  German,  Hoff¬ 
man  a  Swede,  and,  in  political  genius  the  greatest  of 
New-Yorkers,  Alexander  Hamilton,  was  a  British  West- 
Indian.  This  diversity  of  national  origin  in  the  settle¬ 
ment  and  leadership  of  New  York  long  before  the  great 
immigration  began  was  in  this  sense  fortunate  that,  as 
its  chief  city  and  seaport  was  the  gate  through  which 
Europe  entered  America,  it  was  not  a  strait  gate  nor 
did  it  open  upon  a  narrow  way.  The  membership  of  the 
first  constitutional  convention  at  Kingston,  in  which  at 
least  six  different  nationalities  participated,  forecast  the 
cosmopolitan  New  York  of  to-day.  But  the  different 
public  spirit  of  a  homogeneous  and  a  heterogeneous  com¬ 
munity,  in  the  same  country  and  animated  by  the  same 
general  purpose,  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  when 
New  England,  by  the  voice  of  John  Adams,  was  de¬ 
manding  independence,  New  York,  by  the  lips  of  John 
Jay,  was  asking  for  one  more  appeal  to  the  king.  So, 
also,  when  the  king’s  troops  were  forced  out  of  Boston 
in  the  first  year  of  the  war,  they  came  to  New  York 
and  occupied  it  until  the  British  standard  in  the  city 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  459 

was  lowered  never  to  be  raised  again.  These  facts  show 
no  lack  of  patriotism,  but  only  its  slower  movement. 
They  arrest  the  interest  and  curiosity  of  the  student  of 
public  spirit,  and  he  finds  the  explanation  in  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  a  community  sprung  from  a  single  na¬ 
tional  stock  and  one  which  is  blended  of  many  nation¬ 
alities. 

Public  spirit,  I  say,  is  the  mainspring  of  the  republic, 
and  as  public  spirit  is  the  virtue  which  seeks  the  general 
welfare  and  not  a  mere  private  or  personal  advantage, 
it  implies  educated  intelligence.  The  instinct  which 
prompted  our  fathers  in  America  at  once  to  establish 
schools  was  the  forecast  of  the  republic.  The  vital  con¬ 
dition  of  popular  government  is  an  educated  people, 
and  schools  are  both  the  seed  and  the  fruit,  the  cause 
and  the  consequence,  of  public  spirit.  The  two  great 
neighbors,  New  England  and  New  York,  will  always 
banter  each  other  upon  their  relative  primacy  in  Amer¬ 
ican  development.  Happily  it  is  a  war  of  the  roses 
without  the  thorns.  It  is  a  playful  contention  to  deter¬ 
mine  which  was  the  elder  son  and  heir -apparent  of 
liberty.  In  race  they  had  a  common  part  in  historic 
glory.  The  revolt  of  the  Netherlands  against  Spain, 
which  shattered  Charles  V.’s  dream  of  universal  empire, 
the  war  between  the  English  Parliament  and  English 
crown,  and  the  struggle  of  the  American  colonies  with 
the  British  sovereignty,  were  all  successive  and  culmi¬ 
nating  campaigns  in  the  mighty  contest  of  the  mod¬ 
ern  world  for  constitutional  liberty,  and  Holland  began 
it.  George  Washington  was  but  a  later  captain  in 
the  same  invincible  army  in  which  William  of  Orange 


460  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

served,  and  the  United  States  of  Holland  were  the  fore¬ 
runners  in  spirit  and  instinct  of  the  United  States  of 
America. 

Kingston  was  essentially  a  Dutch  town.  Here  the 
traditions  of  Holland  lingered,  distinguishing  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  community  and  moulding  its  life.  Among 
the  most  vital  and  venerable  of  Dutch  traditions  is  the 
school  or  public  education,  and  in  the  friendly  contro¬ 
versy  between  New  England  and  New  York,,  each  claims 
that  its  fatherland  was  the  cradle  of  the  public  school. 
It  is  one  of  those  happy  contentions,  like  that  between 
Virginia  and  Massachusetts  of  colonial  precedence  in 
Revolutionary  patriotism,  which  can  never  be  deter¬ 
mined,  because  neither  community  will  concede  that  it 
was  not  the  first. 

But  there  are  two  indisputable  sources  of  pride  for 
every  son  and  daughter  of  Holland  in  the  history  of 
education.  The  patriarch  of  the  house  of  Nassau, 
Count  John,  the  elder  brother  of  the  great  William, 
exhorted  his  sons  and  nephews  three  centuries  ago  to 
urge  upon  the  States-General  the  establishment  of  free 
schools  as  the  highest  service  possible  for  God  and 
Christianity,  and  especially  for  the  Netherlands  them¬ 
selves.  “  Soldiers  and  patriots  thus  educated,”  said  the 
count,  “  with  a  true  knowledge  of  God  and  a  Christian 
conscience ;  item,  churches  and  schools,  good  libraries, 
books  and  printing-presses,  are  better  than  all  armies, 
arsenals,  armories,  munitions,  alliances,  and  treaties  that 
can  be  had  or  imagined  in  the  world.”  The  New  Eng¬ 
land  historian  of  the  New  Netherlands,  in  whose  noble 
work  the  latest  generation  of  the  Pilgrims  pays  magnifi- 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  46 1 

cent  homage  to  the  country  which  sheltered  them,  says 
that  it  was  the  Dutch  system  of  common  schools  which 
the  Pilgrims  transplanted  to  America  that  has  become 
the  chief  safeguard  and  the  peculiar  glory  of  our  own 
republic.  This  is  one  of  the  just  sources  of  pride  for 
the  sons  of  Holland  in  America,  and  for  this  ancient 
town  as  a  faithful  outpost  of  the  Dutch  tradition. 

The  other  event  to  which  I  allude  is  the  familiar  and 
immortal  story  of  Leyden.  There  is  nothing  finer  in 
the  annals  of  patriotism  than  the  spectacle  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  of  starving  Leyden,  long  besieged  and  apparently 
hopeless  of  succor,  ravaged  by  pestilence  and  reduced 
to  the  direst  extremity,  opening  the  dikes  that  let  in 
the  ocean  upon  the  Spaniards,  like  the  Red  Sea  upon 
the  hosts  of  Pharaoh,  and  crying  with  pinched  lips  but 
undaunted  hearts,  as  they  saw  the  ruin  of  their  fields 
and  homes,  “  Better  a  drowned  land  than  a  lost  land.” 
What  prouder  proof  could  there  be  of  the  essential  no¬ 
bility  of  nature  which  inspired  that  deed  than  that  the 
monument  decreed  by  the  people  of  Holland  for  this 
great  salvation  was  not  a  commercial  exchange  nor  a 
column  of  victory  nor  a  statue  of  a  hero,  but  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Leyden?  No  wonder  that  to  that  city  the 
English  Pilgrims,  on  their  way  to  become  fathers  of 
freedom  in  the  new  world,  came  to  receive  the  benedic¬ 
tion  of  the  sons  of  liberty  in  the  old  world.  In  the  tru¬ 
est  sense,  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  took  their  degrees  at  Ley¬ 
den,  and  New  England  graduated  in  Holland. 

I  recall  these  events  because  it  is  to  men  to  whom 
these  traditions  were  native,  to  those  who  brought  to 
the  new  world  the  wisdom  of  the  old,  to  those  who  had 


462  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

learned  by  the  history  of  the  country  from  which  they 
were  descended  that  public  spirit  is  the  basis  of  repub¬ 
lican  government,  and  that  educated  intelligence  sup¬ 
plies  public  spirit,  that  we  owe  the  foundation  of  the 
Kingston  Academy.  In  1774  a  body  of  trustees,  whose 
family  names  attest  their  Dutch  lineage,  established  the 
Academy,  “  for  the  instruction  of  youth  in  the  learned 
languages  and  other  branches  of  knowledge.”  It  began 
its  peaceful  course  just  as  the  Revolution  was  begin¬ 
ning.  From  this  tranquil  rural  seclusion  the  city  of 
New  York  was  then  far  away,  and  the  sounds  of  the 
opening  war  were  wafted  hither  softened  and  remote. 
In  the  year  that  the  Academy  was  opened,  the  New 
York  Assembly  had  appointed  a  committee  of  corre¬ 
spondence  ;  the  people  of  the  city  had  emptied  the  tea- 
chests  of  the  Nancy  into  the  river ;  the  Sons  of  Liberty 
had  sent  to  Boston  the  recommendation  for  a  general 
Congress  ;  an  immense  meeting  had  been  held  in  the 
Fields,  now  the  City  Hall  Park  of  New  York,  where 
Alexander  Hamilton  made  his  first  speech  ;  the  office 
of  Rivington’s  Gazetteer ,  the  Tory  organ,  had  been  de¬ 
stroyed  ;  and  Hamilton  had  published  his  first  essay 
arguing  the  cause  of  America.  In  the  same  year,  also, 
the  first  Continental  Congress,  suggested  by  New  York, 
met  in  Philadelphia,  and  John  Jay  of  New  York  wrote 
its  famous  Declaration  of  Rights,  and  in  the  next  year 
Ethan  Allen  and  his  Green  Mountain  boys  began  the 
war  in  New  York  by  capturing  the  stronghold  of  Ticon- 
deroga  in  the  name  of  the  Great  Jehovah  and  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress. 

% 

The  Revolution  had  begun,  and,  amid  the  increasing 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  463 

storm  of  war,  just  withdrawn  from  the  river  whose  con¬ 
trol  was  the  tactical  object  of  the  early  military  opera¬ 
tions,  daily  the  bell  of  the  little  Academy  rang,  and 
ingenuous  youth  were  instructed  in  the  learned  lan¬ 
guages  and  other  branches  of  knowledge.  But  in  its 
third  year  the  desolation  of  war  reached  the  town  and 
the  Academy.  In  1777  the  proud  and  confident  Bur- 
goyne,  on  a  brilliant  June  morning,  began  his  march 
from  Canada,  which  he  said  would  be  but  a  pleasant 
promenade  to  the  sea.  To  meet  him  on  his  way,  to 
welcome  the  victorious  general  and  escort  him  in  tri¬ 
umph  to  the  bay,  Sir  Henry  Clinton  advanced  up  the 
Hudson  from  New  York.  He  captured  the  river  forts, 
burst  through  the  boom  and  chain  at  West  Point,  sailed 
into  Newburgh  Bay  on  the  very  morning  of  Burgoyne’s 
disastrous  defeat,  and  gayly  sent  him  word,  “  Here  we 
are,  nothing  between  us  and  Albany.” 

Clinton  burned  Kingston,  and  in  the  general  confla¬ 
gration  the  Academy  was  destroyed,  “a  disaster,”  says 
the  simple  story,  “which  necessarily  suspended  instruc¬ 
tion  for  a  time.”  It  was  but  a  symbol  of  the  fate  which 
had  befallen  education  throughout  the  State.  The  only 
college  in  New  York  was  then  King’s  College,  now  Co¬ 
lumbia,  and  the  war  closed  its  doors  as  ruthlessly  and 
effectually  as  it  closed  those  of  Kingston  Academy.  In 
his  first  message  after  the  end  of  the  war,  on  the  21st  , 
of  January,  1784,  Governor  George  Clinton  mentioned  as 
one  of  its  deplorable  consequences  the  neglect  of  educa¬ 
tion,  and  he  assured  the  Legislature  that  it  had  no  more 
important  duty  than  the  revival  and  encouragement  of 
seminaries  of  learning.  Two  days  afterwards  the  Legis- 


464  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

lature  responded  by  the  appointment  of  a  committee  to 
bring  in  a  bill  for  the  establishment  of  seminaries  and 
schools,  and  a  month  later  the  bill  was  introduced  to 
create  the  Board  of  Regents,  a  body  evidently  designed 
to  discharge  the  duties  of  a  general  State  board  of  ed¬ 
ucation.  Elsewhere  in  the  State  schools  began  to  re¬ 
vive.  This  town  began  to  repair  the  disasters  of  war, 
and  although,  after  the  exhaustion  of  the  Revolution, 
we  cannot  suppose  that  the  public  pulse  of  a  small  and 
poor  community  of  Dutch  descent  beat  impetuously  in 
its  tranquil  retirement,  yet  the  public  spirit  which  had 
established  the  school  gradually  prepared  to  reconstruct 
and  reopen  it,  and  on  the  first  of  December,  1792,  the 
Academy  bell  rang  again,  the  birch  was  doubtless  hung 
convenient  to  the  master’s  hand,  and  under  “  a  gentle¬ 
man,”  as  the  trustees  alleged,  “  of  competent  education 
and  abilities,”  the  daily  lessons  were  resumed. 

Two  years  later,  on  the  5th  of  January,  1795,  the  trus¬ 
tees  applied  to  the  regents  for  a  charter,  and  the  Acad¬ 
emy  was  duly  incorporated  in  an  instrument  attested 
by  George  Clinton,  chancellor,  and  De  Witt  Clinton, 
secretary.  Both  of  these  names  are  identified  with  the 
town,  for  here  the  chancellor  had  been  inaugurated  as 
governor,  and  the  secretary  had  been  a  pupil  of  the 
Academy.  In  June,  1795,  the  trustees  assembled  at  the 
Academy  and  assumed  their  charge.  It  was  unanimous¬ 
ly  ordained  that  “  there  shall  be  taught  in  this  Academy 
the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  elementary  and  prac¬ 
tical  geometry,  mathematics,  logic,  moral  and  natural 
philosophy,  ancient  history,  and  the  history  and  gov¬ 
ernment  of  the  United  States.”  It  is  a  comprehensive 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  465 

scheme  which  would  easily  include  all  the  studies  that 
are  pursued  here  to-day,  and  the  regulations  of  instruc¬ 
tion,  visitations,  and  semi-annual  examinations  in  the 
presence  of  the  trustees  and  the  public  show  the  pur¬ 
pose  and  spirit  of  the  government  of  the  Academy.  It 
is  pleasant  to  observe  in  this  modest  American  town  the 
same  feeling  which  made  high  holiday  in  Greece  of  the 
days  when  the  poets  recited  at  the  games.  It  was  in 
spirit  the  same  tribute  to  the  genius  of  literature  which 
was  paid  by  the  ancient  people,  in  whom  the  instinct 
and  creative  power  of  literature  and  art  were  most  pro¬ 
found  and  active. 

Here  in  Kingston  the  days  of  the  Academy  exami¬ 
nations  were  the  great  days  of  the  year.  Long  antici¬ 
pated,  every  preparation  was  made  in  these  hospitable 
homes  fitly  to  receive  and  entertain  the  guests  of  the 
rejoicing  town.  Amid  the  ringing  of  the  village  bells 

the  Board  of  Trustees,  escorted  by  the  students  of  the 

% 

Academy  and  preceded  by  music,  marched  to  the  hall 
where  the  examination  was  held.  Then  followed  the 
public  dinner,  at  which  trustees,  students,  parents,  and 
distinguished  strangers  sat  down,  and  at  the  spring 
examination  the  festival  ended  by  literary  declamar 
tions  in  the  Dutch  church,  then  the  only  church  in 
Kingston.  In  the  autumn  the  day  ended  with  an  ex¬ 
hibition  in  the  court-room,  where  the  students  spoke 
in  dialogues,  disputes,  and  orations.  At  first  they  also 
played  dramatic  scenes.  But,  whether  the  sombre  shade 
of  Calvin  darkened  over  the  bright  Greek  joyousness 
of  those  earlier  days  of  the  Academy,  or  the  exuber¬ 
ance  of  buskined  youth  exceeded  the  serious  bounds 
I— 3° 


466  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

which  Dutch  decorum  imposed  upon  such  occasions, 
in  1805  these  dramatic  excesses  were  forbidden.  But 
still  the  day  ended,  as  all  such  student  days  end,  with 
the  dance  that  charmed  the  night  away  and  a  gayety 
that  met  the  morning.  A  few  years  later,  on  April  23, 
1817,  possibly  because  the  hilarity  of  the  guests  dis¬ 
turbed  the  becoming  dignity  of  an  Academic  function, 
or  perhaps  because  the  decline  of  the  Academy  itself 
involved  the  sad  necessity,  the  annual  dinner  was  dis¬ 
continued. 

Yet  it  was  in  1803,  only  two  years  before  the  dra¬ 
matic  performances  at  the  semi-annual  exhibitions  were 
suspended,  that  the  Kingston  Academy  was  most  flour¬ 
ishing,  and  a  vivid  glimpse  of  its  condition  is  found  in 
an  address  of  the  trustees  to  the  Board  of  Regents. 
Since  its  establishment  in  1774  the  Academy  had  em¬ 
ployed  able  teachers  with  no  other  fund  than  the  tui¬ 
tion  money.  With  natural  pride  the  trustees  state 
that  from  former  pupils  of  the  Academy  “  can  now  be 
selected  characters  who  have  been  preferred  by  their 
fellow-citizens  for  the  important  offices  of  a  lieuten¬ 
ant-governor  and  president  of  the  Senate,  a  speaker 
of  the  Assembly,  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  a 
mayor  of  one  populous  city  and  both  mayor  and  re¬ 
corder  of  another,  several  members  of  the  national  and 
State  legislatures,  besides  a  number  of  characters  emi¬ 
nent  in  their  several  professions  of  divinity,  law,  and 
physic.”  A  few  years  later  the  trustees  could  have 
headed  this  honorable  list  with  the  name  of  the  great 
Governor  of  New  York  whose  energy  and  persistence 
gave  the  most  effective  impulse  to  the  prosperity  of 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  467 

the  State  by  making  the  Hudson  a  highway  to  the 
ocean  of  the  riches  of  the  West.  During  the  eight 
years  since  its  incorporation,  the  Academy  had  been  vis¬ 
ited  by  the  regents  but  once,  and  it  had  received  from 
the  public  treasury  only  two  hundred  dollars,  which, 
with  a  voluntary  gift  from  citizens  of  sixty  dollars,  had 
been  expended  in  buying  a  neat  set  of  globes,  maps, 
mathematical  apparatus,  and  about  one  hundred  and 
thirty-two  choice  books  for  an  Academy  library.  The 
principal,  the  Rev.  David  B.  Warden,  from  the  Univer¬ 
sity  of  Glasgow,  “  but  last  from  Kinderhook,”  with  only 
one  usher  to  assist  him,  had  charge  of  fifty-three  pupils, 
the  largest  number  in  any  term  in  the  annals  of  the 
Academy.  Two  of  the  pupils  came  from  neighboring 
States,  one  from  Maryland,  and  one  from  Pennsylvania. 
Twenty  were  from  neighboring  counties  in  New  York; 
namely,  one  from  New  York,  one  from  Westchester,  one 
from  Albany,  five  from  Columbia,  five  from  Greene, 
seven  from  Dutchess,  and  the  remaining  thirty-two  were 
from  Kingston’s  own  county  of  Ulster.  “Thus,”  says 
the  address,  “  this  nursery  for  science  will,  with  the 
blessing  of  a  kind  Providence,  spread  her  fruits  far  and 
wide.” 

These  pupils,  it  added,  are  taught  in  all  the  branches 
contemplated  when  the  Academy  was  founded,  with 
the  addition  of  the  French  language ;  and  in  the  lib¬ 
eral  administration  of  their  trust  the  trustees  main¬ 
tain,  in  a  large  and  convenient  room  on  the  first  floor, 
an  English  primary  school  in  which,  generally,  there 
are  twenty-five  or  thirty  pupils.  “  But  these  pupils,” 
say  the  trustees  with  conscious  rectitude,  “  are  not 


468  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

enumerated  with  the  Latin  students  reported  to  the 
honorable  regents,  and  which  they  have  understood 
to  have  been  the  case  from  some  neighboring  semi¬ 
naries,  in  order,  they  presume,  thereby  to  receive  a 
larger  share  of  the  bounty  of  the  State.  Be  that  as 
it  may,  the  trustees  of  Kingston  Academy  have  with 
pleasure  observed  the  means  adopted  by  the  honorable 
Legislature  for  the  encouragement  of  literature,  and 
rest  satisfied  that  their  own  exertions  in  this  laudable 
undertaking  will  not  fail  to  meet  with  every  assistance 
in  the  power  of  a  generous  regency  to  afford  them.” 
It  is  not  surprising  that  upon  so  candid  and  satisfac¬ 
tory  an  appeal,  a  generous  regency  presented  to  the 
Academy  one  hundred  pounds,  which  was  expended  in 
an  advance  to  the  principal  on  account  of  his  salary, 
in  payment  of  a  balance  due  to  a  former  principal, 
and  in  buying  a  new  bell. 

The  public  interest  in  the  Academy  at  this  time  was 
so  great  that  the  next  year,  before  the  ban  fell  upon 
the  dramatic  Muse  and  the  recitations  were  forbidden, 
the  trustees,  encouraged  by  the  prosperity  of  the  Acad¬ 
emy,  proposed  to  found  a  college  in  the  town,  for 
which  they  received  generous  private  subscriptions  and 
a  grant  of  real  estate  from  the  corporation.  A  memo¬ 
rial  from  the  Academy  and  the  town  was  addressed 
to  the  Board  of  Regents  to  obtain  their  sanction  for 
the  project,  and  to  the  Legislature  asking  aid.  The 
regents  expressed  their  satisfaction  with  the  zeal  for 
literature  manifested  by  this  action ;  but  they  replied 
with  courtesy  and  with  a  truthfulness  which  is  always 
timely,  that  the  great  difficulties  with  which  colleges 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  469 

already  chartered  in  the  State  were  struggling  made 
the  multiplication  of  such  institutions  inexpedient. 
The  Board  of  Regents  is  not  usually  regarded  as  a 
humorous  body,  but  there  is  a  plain  touch  of  comedy 
in  the  last  words  of  their  grave  reply.  “  The  com¬ 
mittee  also  beg  leave  to  remark  that  a  large  proportion 
of  the  subscriptions  on  which  the  said  application  is 
founded  consists  of  Ulster  and  Delaware  Turnpike 
stock,  the  value  of  which  is  unascertained  and  ex¬ 
tremely  precarious.”  It  is  to  be  hoped,  in  the  in¬ 
terests  of  education  in  this  State,  that  the  Board  of 
Regents  have  not  lost  the  sagacity  which  paused  at 
unascertained  and  precarious  values  as  the  financial 
security  of  schools  of  learning.  The  reasons  of  the 
regents  were  accepted  as  conclusive.  But  the  corpora¬ 
tion  of  the  town,  whose  names  might  have  been  those 
of  the  trustees  of  any  town  in  Holland,  generously 
conveyed  to  the  trustees  of  the  Academy  the  property 
which  they  had  designed  for  the  proposed  college,  and 
by  a  deed  of  March  15,  1804,  gave  to  the  Academy 
eight  hundred  acres  of  land,  including  the  present  site 
of  the  school. 

These  are  delightful  glimpses  of  the  pride  and  in¬ 
terest  in  education  of  this  small  and  quiet  village  on 
the  Hudson,  three  years  before  Fulton’s  first  steamboat 
amazed  its  placid  waters.  The  government  of  the 
Union  had  been  established  only  fourteen  years  be¬ 
fore,  and  I  have  recalled  these  details  because  such 
local  feeling  as  is  illustrated  by  the  modest  story  of  this 
Academy  was  the  strength  of  the  new  national  system. 
That  feeling  of  local  interest  and  pride  is  the  strength 


470  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

of  our  system  still,  and  its  decay  in  any  American  com¬ 
munity  would  mark  the  decline  of  patriotism.  This 
local  feeling  is  indeed  a  republican  instinct  as  well  as 
an  hereditary  national  tradition.  Its  relation  to  our 
national  polity  is  vital,  and  of  its  careful  and  vigorous 
perpetuation  a  necessity.  If,  as  Dr.  Johnson  said,  we 
must  take  pains  to  keep  our  friendships  in  repair,  how 
much  more  our  patriotism  ! 

The  cardinal  principles  of  the  government  of  the 
Union  were  not  new.  The  system  of  States  politically 
united,  the  two  legislative  chambers,  the  elective  execu¬ 
tive,  the  officers  holding  by  his  appointment — all  these 
had  been  known  elsewhere.  It  was  the  new  development 
of  the  system — the  dual  citizenship,  the  division  of  sover¬ 
eignty,  which  only  the  greatest  of  civil  wars  conclusively 
interpreted  for  us  and  which  other  nations  do  not  yet 
comprehend — that  constituted  its  distinction,  its  elastic¬ 
ity,  and  its  power.  The  wise  localization  of  interest  and 
local  distribution  of  political  power  prevent  the  central¬ 
ization  of  authority,  which  in  Rome  made  a  nominal  re¬ 
public  the  mask  of  despotism.  France  has  hardly  yet 
done  paying  the  penalty  of  centralized  power.  The 
splendid  despotism  of  Louis  XIV.  concentrated  the 
State  in  the  capital  until  the  whim  of  Paris  became  the 
law  of  France.  The  remorseless  royalty  which  brutal¬ 
ized  the  French  people  and  bred  the  French  terror 
was  succeeded  by  the  equally  remorseless  mob  of  Paris, 
which  also  imposed  its  ruthless  will  on  France.  In  all 
the  changes  which  swiftly  followed  the  Revolution  in 
that  country,  it  was  said  with  bitter  gayety  that  the  new 
government  was  sent  down  to  the  subject  provinces  by 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  47 1 

mail  from  Paris,  and  the  mail  was  followed  by  the  army 
if  the  provinces  did  not  acquiesce. 

The  instinct  of  the  English-speaking  race  has  always 
resisted  the  centralizing  tendency.  It  knew  that  love 
of  country  alone  is  not  able  to  maintain  liberty.  The 
people  must  be  trained  in  the  practical  conduct  of  local 
government,  and  this  practice  avails  only  when  the  peo¬ 
ple  are  animated  by  intelligent  and  educated  public 
spirit.  A  system  of  independent  local  governments 
makes  in  turn  a  State  and  a  nation  which  encounter 
peril  as  a  ship  of  many  compartments  meets  the  wild¬ 
est  storm.  The  fury  of  the  sea  may  damage  the  vessel 
at  one  or  another  point ;  but  her  single  hull,  shaken  and 
here  and  there  broken  though  it  be,  with  the  buoyancy 
of  a  fleet  triumphs  over  the  tempest  and  comes  safe  to 
port. 

The  strength  of  the  new  American  republic  was  to  be 
found,  if  at  all,  not  only  in  respect  for  local  custom,  but 
in  the  strength  of  local  authority.  Personal  rights,  the 
most  precious  of  all,  were  to  be  secured  by  local  power. 
The  central  authority  guaranteed  only  the  free  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  local  popular  will,  and  left  to  that  will  so 
expressed  the  defence  of  primary  rights.  The  wisdom 
of  this  system  lay  in  its  respect  for  the  subtle  forces  of 
local  feeling,  custom,  and  tradition,  which  are  the  vital 
social  and  political  forces  in  a  community,  because  they 
are  the  natural  expression  of  its  character,  but  which  are 
incalculable.  The  perilous  temptation  of  the  Conven¬ 
tion  of  1787  was  to  create  a  Procrustean  system  which, 
by  enforcing  uniformity,  would  destroy  vital  individual¬ 
ity.  The  single  State,  indeed,  as  an  independent  com- 


472  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

munity,  is  externally  impotent.  But,  with  its  local  life 
unimpaired  and  its  local  authority  efficient,  its  intimate 
union  with  other  States  makes  a  great  nation.  If  wrong 
be  done  to  a  State,  the  remedy  lies,  where  in  a  popular 
system  the  lawful  remedy  must  always  lie,  in  the  general 
sense  of  justice  which  such  a  system  assumes  as  its  fun¬ 
damental  principle.  No  State  makes  a  treaty  with  any 
other  State  or  with  any  group  of  other  States.  They  all 
combine  in  an  organic  national  unity,  and  a  blow  at  the 
Union  is  an  assault  upon  every  State. 

The  construction  of  the  Union  amid  the  angry  con¬ 
flict  of  jealous  and  mutually  hostile  forces  was  the  con¬ 
stitutional  miracle  of  1787.  As  the  great  deliberation 
happily  ended,  Dr.  Franklin  said,  “Mr.  President,  during 
these  long  and  doubtful  debates,  as  I  have  watched  the 
symbolic  sun  in  the  painting  over  your  seat,  I  have  not 
known  whether  it  was  rising  or  setting,  but  I  see  at  last 
that  it  is  rising.”  If  Lord  Chatham  praised  the  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress  as  an  assembly  of  wise  men  beyond 
Greek  or  Roman  fame,  the  Constitutional  Convention 
suggests  no  other  standard  than  itself.  It  blended  local 
and  national  life  with  an  instinctive  wisdom  which  yet 
was  not  conscious  of  the  political  miracle  that  it  had 
wrought.  And  when  the  very  excess  which  it  restrained, 
the  defiant  exaggeration  of  local  authority  into  inde¬ 
pendent  and  absolute  supremacy  to  secure  an  unright¬ 
eous  end,  struck  at  the  organic  life  of  the  Union,  the 
blow  only  revealed  the  Union’s  unsuspected  and  aston¬ 
ishing  power.  A  union  of  States  had  grown  into  a 
nation.  It  was  local  public  spirit  which  inspired  na¬ 
tional  patriotism. 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  473 

The  same  local  spirit  which  made  the  strength  of  the 
Union  founded  and  maintained  this  Academy  and  every 
similar  institution  throughout  the  country.  They  sprang 
from  the  conviction  and  the  habit  which  make  republi¬ 
can  government  possible.  In  the  decline  of  such  institu¬ 
tions  appear  the  first  signs  of  national  decay,  because 
that  decline  marks  a  failing  public  spirit.  The  decline 
of  an  academy  in  a  town  announces  growing  indiffer¬ 
ence  to  education  which  is  a  fundamental  safeguard  of 
free  institutions,  and  a  relaxation  of  local  pride  which 
is  the  test  of  healthy  local  life. 

See  how  closely  connected  in  this  town  are  the  Acad¬ 
emy  and  a  wholesome  town-pride.  If  the  effort  to  es¬ 
tablish  an  academy  a  hundred  and  seventeen  years  ago 
had  failed  ;  if  ninety-nine  years  ago  the  Academy  had  not 
been  reopened  ;  if  you  could  strike  from  the  traditions  of 
your  town  those  pleasant  pictures  of  your  young  ances¬ 
tors  gayly  dancing  and  acting  in  honor  of  the  success  in 
study  of  son  and  lover,  of  sweetheart  and  brother ;  if 
still  the  echoes  of  the  rural  music  playing  before  the 
procession  of  grave  trustees  escorted  by  pupils  did  not 
linger  in  the  town  tradition,  and  the  whole  pretty  pag¬ 
eant  of  the  holiday  dedicated  to  education  were  not 
part  of  the  annals  of  the  town,  Kingston  would  not  be 
so  justly  proud  of  its  own  history,  and  one  well-spring 
of  the  local  feeling  which  feeds  the  national  life  would 
be  dried  up.  The  modest  Academy  has  perpetually 
taught  the  town  the  value  of  education  by  the  spectacle 
of  the  instinctive  honor  with  which  the  functions  of  the 
Academy  were  treated.  Other  towns  have  their  insti¬ 
tutions  and  centres  of  interest  and  pride.  But  this  is 


474 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 


yours.  This  belongs  to  your  treasures  of  tradition  and 
memory.  This  is  your  town  and  your  story,  this  is  the 
possession  of  which  no  other  town  can  deprive  you. 

Rufus  Choate  tells  us  in  his  eulogy  of  Webster  that, 
in  ending  his  famous  plea  for  Dartmouth  College,  the 
orator  melted  Judge  Marshall  and  his  associates  and 
the  whole  court  to  tears  by  his  allusion  to  the  little 
country  college,  “  a  small  college,  sir,  but  there  are  those 
Avho  love  it.”  That  feeling  invests  this  town,  as  in  some 
form  it  endears  every  town  to  its  children.  Here  and 
not  elsewhere  George  Clinton  was  inaugurated.  Here 
his  famous  nephew  De  Witt  Clinton  was  prepared  for 
college,  and  that  preparation  of  the  youth  for  college 
gave  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  reorganization  after 
the  war  of  the  only  college  in  the  State.  Professor 
Renwick  says  that  in  1784,  when  De  Witt  Clinton, 
after  two  years’  study  in  this  Academy,  reached  New 
York  from  Kingston  on  his  way  to  Princeton  College 
in  New  Jersey,  it  seemed  to  be  a  public  disgrace  that 
the  nephew  of  the  Governor  of  New  York  and  the  son 
of  one  of  the  most  distinguished  citizens  of  the  State, 
should  be  obliged  to  go  out  of  the  State  to  complete 
his  education.  The  feeling  was  so  profound  that  it  led 
to  the  reopening  of  Kings  College  under  its  more  pa¬ 
triotic  name,  and  De  Witt  Clinton  was  the  first  ma¬ 
triculated  student  of  Columbia  College. 

These  are  the  legends  and  associations  upon  which 
local  feeling  and  public  spirit  feed  and  flourish.  A  town 
may  have  singular  industrial  and  commercial  advan¬ 
tages.  Some  falling  Genesee  or  Merrimac  may  gather 
about  it  a  humming  Rochester  or  Lowell ;  mineral  riches 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  475 

may  rear  some  Oil  City  or  Mauch  Chunk,  or  attract  to 
some  Southern  Birmingham  an  activity  and  prosper¬ 
ity  hitherto  unknown  ;  or  a  happy  site,  a  fertile  neigh¬ 
borhood,  marvellous  inventions,  and  abundant  commu¬ 
nications  may  transform  a  solitary  Fort  Dearborn  into 
the  Western  metropolitan  seat  of  a  world’s  fair.  But 
none  of  these  chances,  however  astounding  the  growth 
of  factory  or  railroad,  of  wharf  and  warehouse,  can  sup¬ 
ply  its  highest  pride  to  the  citizens  of  a  city,  or  to  the 
city  itself  its  deepest  influence  upon  the  country.  It  is 
not  the  trade  of  Boston,  it  is  Faneuil  Hall,  the  Cradle 
of  Liberty,  and  Bunker  Hill  that  give  Boston  its  re¬ 
nown  and  her  citizens  their  pride.  Not  because  of  its 
wide  realm  of  houses  and  busy  activities  does  Philadel¬ 
phia  command  the  reverent  regard  of  the  country,  but 
because  there  American  independence  was  declared  and 
the  national  Union  was  constituted.  The  glory  of  New 
York  is  not  that  of  a  wilderness  of  stores  and  work¬ 
shops,  and  an  endless  fleet  bridging  for  her  the  ocean ; 
it  is  that  in  New  York  a  free  press  was  vindicated  in 
Zenger’s  trial,  that  there  the  government  of  the  Union 
was  inaugurated,  and  that  her  bay  and  river,  first  of 
American  waters,  were  consecrated  by  the  genius  of 
literature.  If  in  these  Ulster  hills  some  wanderer,  like 
the  Indian  of  Potosi  pulling  a  sapling,  had  revealed  a 
silver  mine ;  if  under  your  fields  exhaustless  treasures  of 
iron  and  coal  had  been  unlocked,  and  your  eager  town, 
turning  its  riches  to  its  private  aggrandizement,  had 
been  lost  in  its  own  smoke  like  Vulcan’s  smithy  in 
Lemnos,  your  pride  would  not  have  been  so  lofty  and 
so  pure  as  it  is  that  here  the  first  State  constitution 


476  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

was  adopted,  that  here  the  State  government  was  inau¬ 
gurated,  and  that  here  eminent  men  were  trained  in  one 
of  the  earliest  and  best  of  New  York  academies, 

I  speak  of  the  academy  not  in  contrast  or  rivalry 
with  the  public  primary  school,  for  the  academy  is  only 
a  higher  school.  The  distinction  that  we  draw  between 
primary  and  secondary  or  academic  education  does  not 
indicate  an  essential  difference ;  it  does  not  mean  that 
the  State  is  interested  in  one  and  not  in  the  other.  It 
is  a  distinction  of  convenience  only,  to  define  what  limits 
it  may  be  wise  to  prescribe  for  the  public  provision  of 
education.  The  State  care  of  education  is  taken  in  the 
interest  of  the  public  welfare ;  and  of  the  public  welfare, 
and  of  the  necessary  provision  for  it,  the  State  is  itself 
the  judge.  The  State  of  New  York,  for  instance,  does 
not  restrict  its  provision  for  education  to  the  primary 
school.  It  includes  within  its  beneficent  care  and  su¬ 
pervision  the  whole  system  of  colleges,  academies,  and 
secondary  schools,  not  indeed  to  the  same  degree  as  the 
primary  schools,  but  for  the  same  purpose,  namely,  the 
public  welfare,  and  upon  the  same  principle,  namely, 
the  duty  of  promoting  it.  The  maxim  imputed  to  Jef¬ 
ferson,  the  best  government  is  that  which  governs  least, 
like  all  such  absolute  generalizations,  in  order  to  be  true 
must  be  interpreted  intelligently.  Applying  to  it  his 
own  principle  of  strict  construction,  it  would  sweep  away 
both  the  public  school  and  the  post-office,  the  twin  col¬ 
umns  of  public  intelligence  upon  which  the  fabric  of 
popular  government  rests.  Jefferson  was  a  practical 
statesman  just  in  the  degree  that  he  disregarded  the 
absolutism  of  his  own  maxim.  The  latest,  most  thor- 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  477 

ough,  and  ablest  of  the  historians  of  his  administration, 
Mr.  Henry  Adams,  with  complete  justice  to  Mr.  Jeffer¬ 
son's  qualities,  shows  how  comprehensive  was  this  dis¬ 
regard.  Mr.  Bancroft,  who  delighted  to  call  himself  a 
Jeffersonian,  pointed  out  to  me,  but  a  few  years  since, 
that  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  his  last  message  to  Congress  on 
the  8th  of  November,  1808,  recommended,  in  view  of 
a  treasury  surplus,  that  the  revenue  should  not  be  re¬ 
duced,  but  appropriated  “  to  the  improvement  of  roads, 
canals,  rivers,  education,  and  other  great  foundations  of 
prosperity  and  union.”  The  voice  is  Jefferson's  voice, 
but  the  hands  are  the  hands  of  Hamilton. 

It  is  because  New  York,  in  common  with  her  sister 
States,  holds  with  the  old  Dutch  State  of  Zealand  that 
“■  education  is  the  foundation  of  the  commonwealth  ” 
that,  while  providing  munificently  for  the  primary 
schools,  she  does  not  restrict  her  interpretation  of  ed¬ 
ucation  to  the  knowledge  conveyed  in  those  schools, 
but  includes  within  its  rightful  significance  and  to  a 
certain  degree  the  secondary  schools.  It  is  with  the 
same  wise  view  that  the  Legislature  at  its  late  session 
made  an  appropriation  for  the  system  of  University  ex¬ 
tension,  which  is  simply  a  scheme  for  bringing  the  col¬ 
lege,  so  far  as  practicable,  to  citizens  in  every  part  of 
the  State  who  are  unable  to  go  to  the  college.  The 
colleges  of  the  State,  in  concert  with  the  University 
of  the  State,  which  is  the  official  head  of  the  system  of 
higher  education,  unite  with  the  authority  and  aid  of 
the  State  in  an  organized  system  of  lectures  and  ex¬ 
aminations  to  extend  higher  education  throughout  the 
State.  Such  a  system,  indeed,  does  not  abolish  the 


478  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

public  school  nor  supersede  the  college  nor  give  to  its 
students  the  advantage  of  college  residence.  But  in 
every  community  in  the  State  which  desires  the  ben¬ 
efit  it  gives  to  the  graduate  of  the  public  school  who 
is  already  engaged  in  the  active  work  of  life  an  allur¬ 
ing  incitement  to  devote  his  leisure  hours  to  study;  and 
thus,  by  opening  more  widely  diffused  opportunities  of 
education,  by  bringing  the  good  tidings  of  larger  knowl¬ 
edge  to  the  remote  village  and  the  farmer’s  boy,  who 
otherwise  must  lose  it,  it  assures  a  more  educated  peo¬ 
ple  and  a  nobler  commonwealth.  No  recent  legislation 
upon  the  subject  is  more  important  and  significant.  It 
is  another  illustration  of  the  large  comprehensive  and 
sagacious  spirit  which  is  placing  New  York  in  the  van 
of  educational  progress. 

We  must  emancipate  ourselves  from  the  delusion  that 
the  concern  of  the  State  begins  and  ends  with  the  pri¬ 
mary  school,  or  that  the  State  provides  for  the  educa¬ 
tion  of  all  its  children  that  they  may  be  able  only  to 
read  a  newspaper,  to  keep  an  account,  and  to  make  out 
a  bill.  The  public  end  of  education,  indeed,  is  not  to 
make  accountants  or  engineers,  or  specialists  of  any 
kind,  but  enlightened,  patriotic,  upright,  public-spirited 
citizens.  In  primary  education  we  give  the  children 
keys  and  tools,  but  our  duty  includes  showing  how 
to  use  them.  To  teach  a  child  to  read  is  indispen¬ 
sable,  but  to  teach  him  to  read  is  not  to  teach  him 
to  read  with  profit.  Yet  one  is  as  much  a  part  of 
education  as  the  other,  and  the  public  good-sense  that 
sustains  the  school,  not  a  rigid  theory  of  the  limited 
function  of  the  State,  must  determine  the  limits  of  in- 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  479 

struction.  Moderation,  says  Bacon,  must  be  the  rule ; 
but  an  occasional  excess,  he  says,  is  wise. 

Higher  education  is  of  the  highest  concern  to  the 
State,  because  higher  education  is  only  more  education, 
larger  knowledge,  completer  training.  There  is  no  point 
in  education  at  which  indispensable  knowledge  ends  and 
fanciful  knowledge  begins.  Pope’s  sparkling  gibe,  “a 
little  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  thing,”  is  a  caustic  fling 
at  smatterers.  But  all  knowledge  is  comparative.  The 
knowledge  of  great  specialists  and  scholars  is  only  larger 
than  that  of  those  who  know  less.  The  contemporane¬ 
ous  knowledge  of  science  which  Pope  himself  revered 
has  been  long  since  superseded,  and,  measured  by  the 
science  of  to-day,  is  the  merest  little  knowledge  which 
Pope  derided.  Even  while  the  poet  was  writing  the 
line,  the  profoundest  scientific  scholar  in  England,  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  was  saying  with  the  sublime  modesty  of 
greatness,  “  I  do  not  know  what  I  may  appear  to  the 
world,  but  to  myself  I  seem  to  have  been  only  like  a 
little  boy  playing  on  the  sea-shore,  and  diverting  myself 
in  now  and  then  finding  a  smoother  pebble  or  a  pret¬ 
tier  shell  than  ordinary,  whilst  the  great  ocean  of  truth 
lay  all  undiscovered  before  me.” 

Higher  education  means  only  more  education,  and 
the  argument  for  education  is  not  only  an  argument 
for  the  primary  school,  but  for  the  academy,  the  col¬ 
lege,  and  the  university.  The  more  languages  a  man 
hath,  the  more  man  is  he.  If  it  be  well  to  know  a 
little  Latin  or  a  little  German  or  a  little  French,  it 
must  be  better  to  know  more  of  them  ;  and  if  a  man’s 
mental  horizon  is  widened,  his  moral  powers  quickened, 


480  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

and  his  service  to  mankind  enlarged  by  conversing 
with  the  creative  genius  of  all  time,  by  familiarity  with 
Homer  and  Dante  and  Shakespeare  and  Cervantes,  his 
manhood  will  be  the  more  ennobled  if  to  this  power 
he  can  add  the  skill  to  bind  the  sweet  influences  of  the 
Pleiades  or  loose  the  bands  of  Orion. 

Before  our  civil  war  the  public  man  who  proposed  to 
estimate  the  value  of  the  Union  was  popularly  scorned 
as  a  political  parricide.  He  was  calculating  the  life  of 
his  parent.  To  the  public  instinct  the  life  of  the  Union 
was  a  sacred  life  and  therefore  incalculable.  Such  also 
in  this  country  is  the  value  of  education.  We  pay  it 
instinctive  reverence.  In  the  remote  village  when  the 
farmer’s  boy  returns  to  his  native  hills  a  scholar  of  re¬ 
nown,  I  have  seen  the  respect  that  follows  him,  as  if 
every  citizen  were  conscious  of  more  reasons  for  pride 
in  the  village,  and  for  a  sense  of  greater  dignity  in  every 
villager.  If  any  American  should  ask  of  what  use  is  all 
this  education,  the  question  would  be  as  bewildering  as 
if  the  traveller  along  this  river  should  ask  of  what  use 
is  all  this  glorious  landscape  of  the  Hudson,  of  what 
use  to  know  that  it  was  the  gleaming  pathway  of 
Western  empire,  that  yonder  Hendrick  Hudson  sought 
for  a  shorter  passage  to  the  Indies,  and  that  holding 
that  shining  water  the  British  crown  hoped  to  hold 
America.  What  could  Numa  have  answered  if  Egeria 
had  asked  him  what  was  the  use  of  loving  her?  What 
could  Galileo  have  answered  if  the  Inquisition  had  asked 
him  what  is  the  use  of  measuring  the  courses  of  the 
stars  ?  What  Shakespeare,  if  he  had  been  asked  the 
use  of  revealing  in  immortal  verse  the  secret  play  of 


EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  48 1 

the  human  soul  ?  What  shall  we  answer  if  we  are  asked 
the  use  of  hearing  the  tale  of  Troy  divine,  of  listening 
to  Plato  in  the  garden,  to  Aristotle  in  the  grove? 

Or  again,  what  is  the  reply  if  we  are  asked  what 
is  the  use  of  tracing  the  laws  that  govern  exchanges, 
prices,  currency,  money?  What  is  the  use  of  compar¬ 
ing  the  problems  of  State  socialism  and  nationalism 
with  those  of  individualism  and  the  old  laissez-faire  ? 
What  is  the  use  of  studying  the  great  question  of  im¬ 
migration,  and  of  deciding  whether  we  can  rightfully 
risk,  by  admitting  within  our  gates  vast  masses  of  un¬ 
assimilated  and  alien  ignorance  and  pauperism  and 
crime,  the  interests  of  civilization  and  liberty  which 
have  been  committed  to  our  guardianship  ?  What  is 
the  use  of  understanding  ourselves,  our  situation,  our 
powers,  and  our  duties?  What  is  the  use  of  making 
America  a  prouder  name  in  human  history,  because 
signifying  greater  beneficence  to  mankind,  than  Greece 
whom  the  gods  of  beauty  loved,  or  Rome  crowned 
with  the  imperial  sovereignty  of  the  world  ?  These, 
and  such  as  these,  are  the  questions  we  ask  when  we 
ask  what  is  the  use  of  education  ?  Education  is  the  en¬ 
trance  of  the  soul  into  its  rightful  dominion  of  intelli¬ 
gence.  To  make  better  citizens  and  nobler  men,  to  ex¬ 
tinguish  ignorance,  disorder,  and  crime  in  the  wisdom 
that  comes  of  knowledge  and  an  enlightened  conscience 
— for  this  your  academy  and  all  your  schools  were 
founded,  for  this  those  schools  should  be  evermore 
munificently  maintained.  As  plants  turn  instinctively 
to  the  light,  the  human  soul  turns  towards  truth,  and 
every  school  that  we  wisely  open  ministers,  however 
k — 31 


482  EDUCATION  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM 

humbly,  to  the  fulfilment  of  this  noblest  of  human  as¬ 
pirations.  Our  intelligence  is  the  divine  spark  within 
us,  and  the  more  carefully  we  cherish  it  and  fan  it  into 
flame  the  more  certainly  will  the  world  in  which  we  live 
be  enveloped  in  celestial  light,  and  human  life  fulfil  its 
divine  purpose. 


INDEX 


Abolition  agitation,  the  vindication 
of  free  speech,  129. 

Abolition  societies,  existence  of,  in 
slave  States,  68. 

Abolitionists,  reviled,  28 ;  defenders 
of  free  speech,  146. 

Absolutism,  universal  before  the  fif¬ 
teenth  century,  48. 

Adams,  John,  on  human  nature  as  an 
advocate  for  liberty,  104 ;  promotes 
independence  of  American  colo¬ 
nies,  257. 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  on  triumph  of  slave- 
power,  25  ;  heads  minority  in  Con¬ 
gress  against  slavery,  26,  73 ;  in 
Congress,  on  freedom,  329. 

Adams,  Samuel,  30;  showed  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  college  education,  270; 
on  resistance  to  magistrates,  323. 

Addison,  Joseph,  11. 

yEschylus,  7. 

Agitation  of  slavery  question,  the 
purpose  of  the  abolitionists,  90. 

Alabama,  decline  of,  19. 

Albany,  N.  Y.,  address  on  the  Uni¬ 
versity  of  the  State  of  New  York 
at,  July  9,  1890,  429. 

Alston,  Washington,  and  Coleridge, 
319- 

America,  discovered  at  a  most  fitting 
time  for  civilization,  48,  49;  pre¬ 
pared  for  the  religious  movement 
in  Europe,  50 ;  reserved  for  de¬ 
velopment  of  liberty,  48. 

America  (United  States),  sprang  from 
ability  to  organize  liberty  in  in¬ 
stitutions  ;  a  permanent  protest 
against  absolutism;  opposes  free¬ 
dom  to  feudalism,  51 ;  consecrated 
to  freedom ;  freedom  its  political 
foundation,  52  ;  its  greatness  not 
in  achievement,  but  promise,  57; 


needs  only  enlightened  patriotism 
to  fulfil  its  youthful  dreams,  59. 

American  doctrine  of  liberty,  prom¬ 
ises  endless  progress,  107;  founds 
equal  political  knowledge  upon 
human  equality;  repudiates  arbi¬ 
trary  exclusion,  113;  would  give 
equal  political  privileges  to  all 
men,  114;  denial  of,  in  case  of 
colored  men,  115;  denial  of,  by 
Senator  Douglas’s  doctrine  of  the 
rule  of  the  majority,  116;  asserts 
that  worth  makes  the  man,  155. 

American  Doctrine  of  Liberty, 
the  (Address  IV.),  97-125. 

American  foreign  ministers,  apolo¬ 
gists  for  Southern  policy,  132. 

American  literature,  influence  of 
Bryant  and  Irving  upon,  404. 

American  republic,  its  strength  to  be 
found  in  local  authority,  471. 

American  Woman-Suffrage  Associa¬ 
tion,  address  before,  May  12,  1870, 
217. 

Andersonville,  Northern  soldiers 
starved  and  maddened  at,  174, 
212. 

Andrew  Johnson,  impeachment  of, 
276. 

Anneke  Jans,  254. 

Anthony,  Miss  Susan  B.,  on  rights  of 
women,  191. 

A  nti  -  Slavery  Standard ,  address  on 
Patriotism  published  in,  38. 

Appomattox  Court-house,  surrender 
of  Gen.  Robert  E.  Lee  at,  April 
9,  1865,  175. 

Ascham,  Roger,  11. 

Athens,  liberty  in,  the  possession  of 
a  few,  101. 

Avery,  Miss,  proves  her  right  to 
practise  medicine,  228. 


484 


INDEX 


Bancroft,  George,  on  government  as 
an  experiment  in  U.  S.,  327;  on 
Jefferson’s  surplus  policy,  477. 

Barbauld,  Mrs.,  on  empire  of  women, 

407. 

Barnard,  President  of  Columbia  Col¬ 
lege,  N.  Y.,  on  statistics  of  educa¬ 
tion,  364. 

Beecher,  Miss  Catherine,  founds 
school  for  young  women  at  Hart¬ 
ford,  Conn.,  409. 

Behn,  Aphra,  375. 

Belle -Isle,  prison  of,  Northern  sol¬ 
diers  starved  and  maddened  at, 

174. 

Bentley,  Richard,  11. 

Benton,  Sen.,  his  warning  against 
Southern  leaders,  133. 

Bill  of  1798  regarding  slavery  in  ter¬ 
ritories,  22. 

Blackwell,  Misses,  prove  their  right 
to  practise  medicine,  228. 

Blanc,  Louis,  on  John  Bright,  256. 

Bonheur,  Rosa,  proves  her  right  to 
paint,  228. 

Boston,  courts  slave-power,  30;  mer¬ 
chants  of,  mob  an  abolition  editor, 
81 ;  asks  Sen.  Toombs  to  speak  on 
slavery,  87  ;  first  American  news¬ 
paper  published  in,  1764,300;  high- 
school  for  girls  in,  410,  41 1,  418. 

Botelier,  Dr.,  quoted  by  Walton  on 
the  strawberry,  243. 

Bourbon  tyranny,  8. 

Bradford,  William,  issues  the  first 
newspaper  in  N.  Y.,  1725,  295. 

Breckinridge,  J.  C.,of  Ky. , candidate 
for  the  Presidency,  175. 

Bright,  John,  represented  American 
union  and  liberty  in  Parliament, 
256. 

Broadhurst,  Thomas,  his  work,“  Ad¬ 
vice  to  Young  Ladies  on  the  Im¬ 
provement  of  the  Mind,”  409. 

Brown,  John,  attempt  to  raise  revolt 
among  the  negroes,  October,  1859 ; 
his  capture  and  death,  62 ;  an  il¬ 
lustrious  fanatic,  146. 

Brown  University,  Providence,  R.  I., 
address  before,  38,  315. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  his  scholarly 
seclusion  in  civil  war,  319. 

Buchanan,  J ames,  the  proslavery  nom¬ 
inee  for  President  in  June,  1856, 
2 ;  elected  as  proslavery  candidate, 


1856,38;  steady  progress  of  pro¬ 
slavery  party  in  his  administration, 
62 ;  voted  when  Senator  to  tamper 
with  the  mails  to  benefit  slavery, 
73 ;  on  protection  of  slavery  lead¬ 
ers,  86;  elected  by  South,  136; 
plotted  piracy,  141 ;  on  State  and 
National  rights,  160. 

Buckle,  his  “  History  of  Civilization 
in  England,”  quoted  on  abuse  of 
power  by  class,  193;  on  Roman 
treatment  of  women  as  things,  221. 

Burgoyne,  Gen. ,  march  from  Canada 
in  1777,  463. 

Burke,  Edmund,  could  not  indict  a 
whole  people,  146;  on  compro¬ 
mise,  166;  his  impeachment  of 
Hastings,  320;  on  taxation  of  the 
Colonies,  435. 

Cabot,  Sebastian,  50. 

Cabral,  50. 

Calhoun,  J.  C.,  member  of  the  Cabi¬ 
net  in  Administration  of  Pres. 
Monroe,  25 ;  opposes  antislavery 
petitions  in  1835,  26;  attempts  in 
1850  to  subvert  the  Constitution, 
77,  78  ;  his  speeches  awaken  pub¬ 
lic  opinion,  83 ;  the  apostle  of  the 
Southern  Policy,  devoted  his  life 
to  demoralization  of  national  char¬ 
acter,  128 ;  his  purpose  to  stifle  de¬ 
bate,  128;  gained  over  the  Church, 
the  college,  parties,  trade,  fashion, 
against  the  government,  130;  as¬ 
surance  in  South  that  his  work  wras 
done,  137;  what  he  accomplished 
between  1833  and  i860,  139;  an 
illustrious  fanatic,  146. 

Campaign  of  1856,  oration  delivered 
by  G.  W.  Curtis  in,  2. 

Capua,  enervates  Hannibal’s  army, 
43- 

Cartier,  50. 

Caste,  struggle  in  America  to  over¬ 
throw,  famous  fighters  against,  153; 
maintenance  of,  intended  by  South, 
168;  must  be  maintained,  say  the 
governors  and  legislatures  of  Mis¬ 
sissippi,  Louisiana,  Alabama,  N  orth 
Carolina,  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia,  in  Indiana,  Pennsylvania, 
New  Jersey,  Illinois,  Michigan, 
Iowa,  California,  Minnesota,  Ore¬ 
gon,  Kansas,  Wisconsin,  Missouri, 


INDEX 


West  Virginia,  171;  change  re¬ 
garding  the  Jews  in  England,  174; 
Andrew  Johnson  on;  compared  to 
a  glacier,  175;  dissolution  of,  176. 

Chamber  of  Commerce  of  New  York, 
address  before,  393. 

Chamberlain,  Rt.  Hon.  Joseph, M.P., 
at  New  York  Chamber  of  Com¬ 
merce  annual  banquet,  1887,  392. 

Channing,  W.  E.,  in  slavery  agita¬ 
tion,  329. 

Chatham,  Lord,  view  of  the  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress,  381;  on  Consti¬ 
tutional  Convention,  472. 

Choate,  Rufus,  eulogy  on  Webster, 
474- 

Cholera,  divine  vengeance  upon  un¬ 
cleanliness;  danger  of,  in  1864, 164. 

Church,  the,  its  repression  of  free¬ 
dom,  11. 

Cincinnati,  Society  of  the,  founded 
at  Fishkill-on-Hudson,  402. 

Cincinnatus,  the  ideal  citizen,  17. 

Civil  War,  its  results, — unity,  power, 
equal  rights,  168;  influence  of 
women  in,  210;  part  of  the  scholar 
in,  329-331- 

Class  prosperity,  its  tendency  to  lax¬ 
ity  of  principle,  8. 

Clay,  Henry,  protests  against  exten¬ 
sion  of  slave  territory,  29 ;  on  com¬ 
promise  with  slavery,  78. 

Clergy,  the,  attitude  towards  slavery, 
75,  80. 

Clinton,  Gen.  James,  regent  of  the 
University  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  354. 

Clinton,  Gov.  De  Witt,  of  N.  Y., 
on  Athenian  criticism,  278 ;  first 
candidate  for  admission  to  the 
University  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  1784,  354;  education  of, 
474- 

Clinton,  Gov.  George,  of  N.  Y.,  en¬ 
courages  education  in  N.  Y.,  352, 
353;  Chancellor  of  the  University 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  in  1784, 
354,  356;  on  Education  in  N.  Y., 

463. 

Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  Revolutionary 
campaign  of,  463. 

Cobb,  Mr.,  of  Ga.,  on  disunion,  24. 

Cobbler  of  Agawam,  on  immoral  laws, 
54- 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  on  Art,  319. 


485 

College  Commencement,  its  signifi¬ 
cance,  263. 

College,  the,  its  representation  in  Con¬ 
stitutional  Convention,  325 ;  debt 
of  the  American  to  Cambridge  and 
Oxford,  344;  condition  of  the  Co¬ 
lonial,  345  ;  work  of  the  Colonial, 
350;  graduates  of,  as  leaders  of 
the  Revolution,  351 ;  Vassar,  the 
first  endowed  for  women,  1865, 
4°5- 

Colonial  history,  its  unattractiveness, 

384. 

Columbus,  Washington  Irving  on 
his  discovery  of  America,  46. 

Commonwealth ,  the  Boston,  article  by 
E.  E.  Hale  regarding  G.  W.  Curtis, 
240. 

Compromise,  insisted  upon  by  trade, 
Burke  on,  166. 

Compromise  of  1850,  77,  78. 

Congress,  its  first  meeting  and  slavery, 
21;  allows  slavery  in  Mississippi, 
25 ;  protests  against  slave-trade  in 
1774,68;  restores  prohibition  of 
slavery  in  territories  in  1785,68; 
on  slavery,  69;  majority  of  every 
committee  devoted  to  slavery,  74 ; 
its  control  by  slave-party,  133. 

Congress  of  theoldConfederation,  20. 

Constitution,  the,  and  slavery,  20;  de¬ 
clared  to  nationalize  slavery,  27  ; 
recognizes  equal  rights  of  all  men, 
69 ;  designed  the  gradual  abolition 
of  slavery,  69,  70,  71;  Calhoun’s 
attempt  in  1850  to  subvert,  77;  de¬ 
bate  on,  regarding  slavery,  78;  as¬ 
serted  to  be  in  favor  of  both  parties, 
92;  clothes  the  President  with  al¬ 
most  absolute  power  in  time  of 
war,  1 13;  development  of,  through 
Switzerland  and  England,  405 ; 
condemned  by  R.  H.  Lee,  331. 

Constitutional  Amendment,  abolishes 
slavery,  1 50. 

Constitutional  Convention,  number 
of  college  graduates  in,  325,  351'; 
its  enduring  work,  381. 

Constitutional  Convention  of  New 
York  State,  held  at  Albany,  July 
19,  1867,  180;  at  Seneca  Falls, 
N.  Y.,  1848,  opens  discussion  of 
woman-suffrage,  18 1. 

Constitutional  liberty,  modern  strug¬ 
gle  for,  illustrated,  459. 


486 


INDEX 


Continental  Congress,  its  last  words 
on  the  rights  of  human  nature, 
107 ;  how  it  appeared  to  Lord 
Chatham,  381. 

Convention  of  1787,  temptation  of,  to 
enforce  uniformity  in  government, 
471- 

Cooper,  Dr.,  vanquished  in  debate 
by  Alexander  Hamilton,  350. 

Corlaer,  Arent  Van,  his  fair  dealing 
with  Indians,  291. 

Cornell,  Ezra,  anecdote  of,  concern¬ 
ing  Latin,  416. 

Corruption,  the  twin  of  cowardice,  9 ; 
makes  great  States  impossible,  276. 

Cortereal,  50. 

Cosby,  Gov.,  of  New  York,  removes 
chief-justice  in  1732,296;  attempts 
to  destroy  freedom  of  the  press, 
310. 

Cotton-gin,  the,  thwarts  design  of 
the  Constitution  regarding  slavery; 
its  effect  upon  slavery  and  the  Con¬ 
stitution,  71. 

Cowardice,  moral,  commercial  success 
tends  towards,  5  7 ;  will  not  thwart 
progress  to  liberty  and  law,  59. 

Curtis,  Judge  Benjamin,  corrects 
false  history  of  Judge  Taney, 
172. 

Curtis,  G.  W. ,  editorial  note  upon  his 
letter  on  publication  of  his  ad¬ 
dresses,  vii ;  his  spirit  and  char¬ 
acter  ;  after-dinner  speeches,  viii ; 
a  leader  of  public  opinion,  his  influ¬ 
ence  in  politics,  2  ;  engaged  in  con¬ 
firming  antislavery  sentiment,  1856, 
38 ;  address  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y., 
62  ;  in  Philadelphia  under  difficul¬ 
ties,  63  ;  amendment  of,  in  Consti¬ 
tutional  Convention  of  N.  Y.  to  in¬ 
clude  women  in  the  right  of 
suffrage,  181;  article  on,  by  E.  E. 
Hale  in  Boston  Commonwealth , 
Sept.  10,  1892,  240. 

Curran,  on  liberty  in  England,  102. 

Dali,  Mrs.  C.  H.,on  fitness  of  women 
to  give  evidence,  205. 

Dartmouth  College,  Hanover,  N.  H., 
address  before,  38. 

Darwin,  316. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  declares  the  South 
seceded  to  get  rid  of  the  rule  of 
the  majority,  128. 


Democracy  in  America,  the  political 
aspect  of  the  Reformation,  51. 

Democracy,  name  adopted  by  the 
South,  137. 

Democratic  party,  in  alliance  with 
slave-party  in  1850,83. 

Democratic  House  of  Representa¬ 
tives,  should  provide  settlement  of 
Hayes -Tilden  election  difficulty, 
248. 

De  Quincey,  on  Dr.  Parr,  319. 

De  Tocqueville,  on  liberty  of  thought 
and  speech  in  America,  109,  127. 

District  of  Columbia,  right  of  petition 
against  slavery  denied  in,  26. 

Disunion,  threatened  by  slave-power, 
23 ;  cried  by  Calhoun  and  slave- 
power,  26. 

Dongan  Charter  of  New  York  in 
1683,  292. 

Douglas,  Sen.  Stephen  A.,  his  Kan¬ 
sas  settlement  bill,  31 ;  speaks  in 
Memphis  on  distinction  between 
white  men  and  black  in  regard  to 
Liberty,  66;  on  recognition  of 
slavery  by  law,  67 ;  facts  unmen¬ 
tioned  by,  in  his  proslavery  speeches, 
68 ;  asserts  that  the  slave-party  is 
the  national  party,  86 ;  on  Southern 
treatment  of  antislaveryites,  87;  on 
extension  of  slavery  in  territories  ; 
his  doctrine  that  there  are  no  rights 
anterior  to  governments,  speaks  at 
Memphis  and  Columbus,  88 ;  his 
frenzy  to  be  President ;  his  doctrine 
of  the  rule  of  the  majority,  applied 
to  slavery  in  the  territories,  1 1 7  ; 
on  right  of  majority  to  deprive  the 
minority  of  all  rights,  189. 

Duty  of  the  American  Schol¬ 
ar,  the  (Address  I.),  3-35. 

Education,  a  power  in  human  affairs, 
264  ;  Theodore  Parker  on  duty  of 
educated  men,  144,  264  ;  real  in 
self-made  men,  270;  advantages 
of  a  college,  271  ;  not  incompatible 
with  mastery  of  men  and  efficiency 
of  administration,  272  ;  false  dis¬ 
trust  of,  in  America,  317  ;  laid 
foundations  of  American  Republic, 
327  ;  its  influence  on  the  majority 
and  corruption  in  politics,  334,  335, 
336  ;  its  relation  to  politics,  351  ; 
advantages  of  the  higher,  364-366 ; 


INDEX  487 


Noah  Webster  on,  in  U.  S.,  in 
1800  ;  George  Ticknor  on,  in  Bos¬ 
ton,  408  ;  its  relation  to  material 
prosperity,  451  ;  its  ministry,  great¬ 
est  to  the  soul,  452  ;  relation  of  the 
State  to,  478  ;  advantages  of,  479- 
482  ;  and  practical  life,  480,  481. 

Education  of  women,  growth  of  in¬ 
terest  in,  since  1800  ;  in  Prussia, 

407  ;  Mrs.  John  Adams  on,  in  1790, 

408  ;  Sydney  Smith  on,  409  ; 
schools  for,  409,  410 ;  Boston  High- 
school  for  Girls  closed  because  of 
expense ;  Oberlin  College  founded 
1834,  41 1 ;  other  colleges  for  wom¬ 
en,  412 ;  Matthew  Vassar  on,  417, 
418 ;  progress  of,  illustrated  by  col¬ 
leges  in  U.S.,  England,  Germany, 
France,  Switzerland,  Spain,  Italy, 
419,  420. 

Education  and  Local  Patriot¬ 
ism  (Address  XIX.),  455-482. 

Election  of  1864,  anticipated  troubles 
in,  159. 

Elections,  and  party  spirit,  309. 

Ellsworth,  Oliver,  of  Conn.,  pro¬ 
tests  against  sanction  of  slavery  by 
the  Constitution,  21.  — 

Emancipation,  gradual,  the  design  of 
the  fathers,  106. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  on  his  col¬ 
lege  days,  317  ;  on  West  Indian 
Emancipation,  401  ;  on  Bancroft’s 
History,  416. 

Endicott,  Gov.,  of  Mass.,  cuts  the 
cross  out  of  Colonial  flag,  258. 

England,  liberty  in,  condition  of  her 
farm  laborers,  102  ;  sympathy  of, 
with  the  Rebellion,  103  ;  in  the 
Reformation,  374 ;  her  attitude  tow¬ 
ards  slavery  and  liberty,  375. 

English-Speaking  Race,  the  (Ad¬ 
dress  XVI.),  393-397* 

English-speaking  race,  the,  founder 
of  commonwealths,  pioneer  of  prog¬ 
ress,  393  ;  its  material  achieve¬ 
ments,  defender  of  liberty,  394  ; 
development  in  New  England, 395 ; 
universal  misfortune  of  its  division 
and  alienation,  396  ;  defence  of 
constitutional  liberty  committed  to, 
397* 

English  universities,  described,  fa¬ 
mous  men  of,  439,  440  ;  Goldwin 
Smith  on,  440. 


Enterprise,  its  achievements  in  Amer¬ 
ica,  57. 

Equality  of  birth,  discussion  of,  105. 

Equal  rights,  cannot  be  compromised, 
166. 

Europe,  sends  ablest  correspondent 
to  U.  S.,  139  ;  believed  in  South¬ 
ern  triumph,  141. 

Everett,  Edward,  on  Daniel  Web¬ 
ster’s  belief  in  ultimate  freedom, 
70  ;  when  Gov.  of  Mass.,  in  1836, 
counsels  silence  on  slavery,  74-81. 

Exclusion,  arbitrary,  tends  towards 
despotism,  114. 

Fair  Play  for  Women  (Address 
^  VIII.),  215-238. 

Faneuil  Hall,  attempt  to  suppress 
free  speech  in,  280. 

Fathers  of  the  Republic,  their  dec¬ 
laration  on  liberty  for  all  men, 

67. 

Fawcett,  Miss  Philippa,  wins  highest 
honor  of  Cambridge  (Eng.)  Uni¬ 
versity,  442. 

Federal  party,  its  majority  in  Con¬ 
gress  ;  administered  govt,  for  slave- 
class,  27. 

Fletcher  of  Saltoun,  on  the  songs  and 
laws  of  a  people,  126. 

Florida,  ceded  to  U.S.  by  Spain,  25. 

Forefathers’  Society  of  New  York, ad¬ 
dress  before,  by  G.  W.  Curtis,  240. 

France,  despotism  in,  470. 

Franklin,  Benj.,  pres,  of  first  abo¬ 
lition  society,  20  ;  heads  antisla¬ 
very  petition  to  First  Congress, 
21  ;  plan  of  colonial  union  pro¬ 
posed  in  Albany  Congress  by, 
1754,  348. 

Freedmen’s  Bureau  at  Washington, 
established  to  secure  their  rights 
to  negroes,  170. 

Freedom  necessary  to  moral  respect, 
17- 

Freedom  of  speech,  6  ;  asserted  by 
the  scholar,  10  ;  attempt  to  sup¬ 
press  in  Philadelphia,  1859  ;  sup¬ 
pressed,  i860,  63  ;  De  Tocqueville 
on,  109,  127  ;  punished,  in  ;  the 
enemy  of  the  Southern  Policy,  145 ; 
defended  by  abolitionists,  146  ; 
the  bulwark  of  Union,  147  ;  at¬ 
tempt  to  suppress,  in  Boston,  280. 

Freedom  of  thought,  necessary  to 


488 


INDEX 


progress  and  civilization,  6  ;  as¬ 
serted  by  the  scholar,  io. 

Freedom,  party  of,  its  majority  in 
Congress  while  slavery  triumphed, 
27. 

Frelinghuysen,  Sen.,  on  the  mission 
of  women,  203. 

Fremont,  Gen.,  presidential  nominee 
of  Rep.  party  in  1856,  2. 

F ugger,  Augsburg  banker  and  Charles 
V.,  anecdote  of,  449. 

Fugitive -slave  Bill,  in  passing  ex¬ 
poses  the  demoralization  of  the 
free  majority  in  Congress,  30. 

Fuller,  Margaret,  on  the  demand  of 
women  for  freedom,  423  ;  as  the 
type  of  women  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  424. 

Gadsden,  Christopher,  on  colonial 
independence,  294. 

Galileo  and  the  Inquisition,  10. 

Garfield,  Pres.,  his  independence  of 
constituents,  332. 

Garibaldi,  his  career  illustrates  the 
power  of  conviction  and  enthusi¬ 
asm,  334. 

Garrison,  W.  L. ,  mobbed  in  Boston, 
Oct.,  1835,  130;  famous  declara¬ 
tion  of,  on  freedom  of  speech,  388. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  of  Mass.,  quoted 
adverse  to  slavery,  20  ;  on  Consti¬ 
tutional  Convention  and  slavery, 
21. 

George  II.,  King’s  College,  N.  Y., 
named  for,  349. 

Gibbon,  on  usurpation  of  political 
power  by  man,  183  ;  on  political 
relations  of  man  to  woman,  220. 

Gladstone,  disbelief  in  subjection  of 
rebellion  ;  on  creation  of  a  nation 
by  Jefferson  Davis,  158  ;  right  of 
suffrage,  191  ;  on  equality  of  man 
and  woman,  193. 

Goethe,  on  plants,  222  ;  Theodore 
Parker  on  his  services  to  man,  318. 

Goldsmith,  on  government  of  work¬ 
ers  by  thinkers,  189. 

Good  Fight,  the  (Address  VI.), 
I5I-I77. 

Government,  a  science  of  compro¬ 
mises,  79. 

Gower,  Lord,  on  rights  of  colonists, 
188. 

Grant,  Gen.  U.S.,  surrender  of  Gen. 


R.  E.  Lee  to,  175  ;  his  tenacity, 
patience,  promptness,  176. 

Gray,  Thomas,  11. 

Greece,  4,  8  ;  condition  of  women  in, 
220. 

Greeley,  Horace,  story  of,  in  Paris, 

,  I57.  253. 

Greene,  Nathaniel,  in  the  Revolu- 
tion,  324. 

Great  Britain,  her  triumph  in  the 
Revolution  would  have  imperilled 
constitutional  liberty  everywhere, 
151. 

Grote,  on  condition  of  women  deter¬ 
mined  by  men,  221. 

Gutierez,  Pedro,  sights  land  with  Co¬ 
lumbus,  47. 

Hadley,  legend  of  a  venerable  leader 
in,  382. 

Hale,  Nathan,  dies  for  his  country, 

45. 

Hale,  Rev.  E.  E.,  communication 
regarding  Mr.  G.  W.  Curtis’s  ad¬ 
dress  before  the  Forefathers’  So¬ 
ciety  in  New  York,  240-242. 

Halleck,  Fitz-Greene,  his  verses  on 
the  regents  of  the  University  of 
New  York,  362  ;  satire  of,  in  the 
Croaker ,  upon  the  regents  of  the 
University  of  New  York,  431. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  on  human 
rights,  104  ;  on  endurance  of  the 
Union,  161,  162  ;  on  rights  of 
mankind,  186  ;  debt  of  education 
in  N.  Y.  to,  355  ;  assists  in  forma¬ 
tion  of  University  of  New  York, 
433  ;  his  relation  to  University  of 
New  York,  434-436. 

Hamilton,  Andrew,  defends  J.  P. 
Zenger  in  libel  case,  296. 

Hannibal,  his  army  enervated  at 
Capua,  43. 

Hare,  Thomas,  on  woman- suffrage, 
190. 

Harvard  University,  influence  of, 
upon  the  college  world,  444. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  and  D.  G. 
Rossetti’s  picture,  “How  They  Met 
Themselves,”  315. 

Ilayes-Tilden  election  difficulty,  ad¬ 
dress  by  G.  W.  Curtis  regard  ing,  240. 

Henry,  Mr.,  Mayor  of  Philadelphia, 
maintains  free  speech  in  city,  63. 

Henry,  Patrick,  message  to  Mass., 


INDEX 


489 


“I  am  not  a  Virginian,  I  am  an 
American,”  247,  295. 

Herbert,  George,  11. 

Higher  Education  of  Women, 
THE  (Address  XVII.),  401-425. 

History,  instances  of  men  forming 
epochs  in,  406. 

Holland,  the  drawback  of  its  com¬ 
mercial  prosperity,  9  ;  transplants 
its  system  of  common  schools  to 
America,  461. 

Holt,  Jos.,  136. 

Holt,  Lord,  declares  in  1705  that  the 
law  of  England  does  not  recognize 
slavery,  66. 

Holy  Alliance  prepares  degradation 
for  Europe,  137. 

Hopkins,  Esek,  in  the  Revolution, 
324- 

Hopkins,  Gov.  Stephen,  of  R.  I., 
panegyric  upon,  352. 

Howard,  Gen.,  170. 

Howe,  Mrs.  Julia  Ward,  on  woman- 
suffrage,  219. 

Howell,  Mr.,  on  probation  by  wit¬ 
nesses,  204. 

Hue,  Abbe,  on  condition  of  women 
in  China,  221. 

Hudson  River,  the,  historic  associa¬ 
tions  connected  with,  290,  339, 
340,  371,  400-403. 

Humanity,  its  advance,  illustrated  by 
history,  43,  44  ;  different  races  of, 
bound  together  by  ties  of  tradition, 
language,  intercourse  and  sympa¬ 
thy,  100. 

Humboldt,  William  von,  head  of 
Prussian  school  system,  407. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  on  Horace  and  Demos¬ 
thenes,  319,  448. 

Hunt,  Miss,  proves  her  right  to  prac¬ 
tise  medicine,  228. 

Hunt,  Richard,  designer  of  the  Puri¬ 
tan  statue  in  Central  Park,  N.  Y., 
368. 

Hunter,  Mr.,  on  peaceful  change  of 
govt.,  136,  141. 

Illinois,  property  rights  of  women  in, 
IQ5- 

Indian  policy  in  N.  Y.,  292. 

Innovation,  in  English  law  and  poli¬ 
tics,  197. 

Inquisition,  the,  and  Galileo,  II. 

Ireland,  scholars  of,  322. 


Irving,  Washington,  on  discovery  of 
America  by  Columbus,  46 ;  and 
the  Hudson  River,  403. 

Italy,  scholars  of,  322. 

Jackson,  Gen.,  on  cession  of  Florida, 

25. 

James  II.  .sends bishops  to  theTower; 
exiled,  56  ;  sung  out  of  three  king¬ 
doms,  126;  and  religious  liberty,  266. 

Jay,  John,  asserts  freedom  of  slaves, 
73  ;  on  Hamilton’s  letter ;  fur¬ 
nished  principle  of  independence 
to  the  press,  310. 

Jefferson,  Pres.,  introduces  free  clause 
of  Northwest  Ordinance,  20  ;  si¬ 
lence  on  slavery  discussion,  23  ;  on 
antislavery  in  1774,  68,  84;  de¬ 
clares  that  all  men  are  created 
equal,  104;  on  Erie  canal,  198; 
on  the  Constitution,  328  ;  on  best 
form  of  govt.,  476. 

John,  Count  of  Nassau,  on  free 
schools,  460. 

Johnson,  Pres.  Andrew,  unfriendli¬ 
ness  of  the  South  to,  136 ;  on  caste, 
175. 

Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  inconsistency 
of,  11 ;  “Rasselas,”  quoted  on  edu' 
cation,  265  ;  on  friendship,  470. 

Johnson,  Gov.,  of  Va.,  19. 

Jonson,  Ben,  characteristics  of,  11. 

Justice  contrasted  with  injustice  in 
their  effects,  119. 

Kansas,  attempt  to  make  it  a  slave 
State,  2  ;  its  elections  carried  by 
men  from  Mo.,  led  by  the  Pres,  of 
the  U.  S.  Senate,  31 ;  triumph  of 
slave-power  in,  32 ;  the  burial-place 
of  the  martyrs  of  Liberty,  34. 

Kendal,  Amos,  Postmaster-Gen.  of 
U.  S. ,  robs  the  mail,  131. 

King,  Rufus,  on  Missouri  Compro¬ 
mise  debate,  24,  72. 

King’s  College,  number  of  graduates, 
346 ;  events  contemporary  with 
founding  of,  348  ;  compared  with 
Gottingen,  349. 

Kingston  Academy,  N.  Y. ,  address 
before,  455  ;  established  in  1774  ; 
contemporary  events,  462;  history, 
463-469,  474. 

Kingston,  N.  Y.,  its  historic  associa¬ 
tions,  455. 


49° 


INDEX 


Knickerbockers,  the,  244. 

Know-nothing  party,  proposed  to  re¬ 
strict  political  liberty,  1 1 5  ;  its 
career  the  shortest  in  our  history, 
1 16. 

Las  Casas,  Bishop,  advises  the  enslav¬ 
ing  of  negroes  for  their  conversion, 
49  ;  repents  of  his  error,  50 ;  his 
proposal  to  enslave  the  Indian,  65. 

Law,  the,  not  binding  when  immoral ; 
of  two  kinds,  relation  to  citizenship 
and  manhood  ;  power  in  America 
to  change,  53,  54,  55  ;  the  will  of 
the  majority,  56. 

“  Lawe’s  Resolution  of  Women’s 
Rights,”  quoted,  184. 

Lawrence,  Kan.,  burned  by  pro¬ 
slavery  forces,  2. 

Leadership  of  Educated  Men, 
the  (Address  XIII.),  313-336. 

Lear,  Edwd.,  on  Greek’s  opinion  of 
women  as  burden-bearers,  220. 

Lee,  Gen.  Robert  E.,  surrender  of, 
Apr.  9,  1865,  175. 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  on  the  right  to 
life  and  liberty,  104  ;  on  Constitu¬ 
tion  of  U.  S.,  331. 

Lewis,  Prof.  Taylor,  his  work  “  He¬ 
roic  Periods  in  a  Nation’s  History,” 
265. 

Leyden,  371  ;  opens  dikes  when  be¬ 
sieged,  461. 

L’Hommedieu,  Ezra,  N.  Y.,  assists 
in  formation  of  the  University  of 
New  York,  433. 

Liberty,  the  object  of  human  govern¬ 
ment,  15  ;  the  contest  of  humanity 
for,  18  ;  security  of,  the  purpose 
of  the  Civil  War,  97  ;  scope  of 
American  doctrine  of,  98,  99  ;  the 
possession  of  few  in  Athens  and 
Rome,  101 ;  Hamilton,  Otis,  Lee, 
Adams,  Madison,  Mason,  Henry, 
Randolph,  declare  it  to  be  the 
right  of  all  men,  103,  104 ;  founded 
in  the  natural  rights  of  man,  105  ; 
American  doctrine  of,  promises 
endless  progress,  107  ;  of  thought 
and  speech,  De  Tocqueville  on,  109; 
the  fight  for,  the  story  of  history, 
152  ;  the  Puritan  principle,  245. 

Lillibullero  drove  James  II.  out  of 
three  kingdoms,  126. 

Lincoln,  Pres.,  unites  Washington’s 


integrity  and  J  efFerson’s  democracy, 
1 13  ;  recognizes  negroes  as  equals, 
154. 

Livingston,  Chancellor,  of  N.  Y. ,  on 
impossibility  of  railroads,  198,  355. 

Lombard  University,  Ill.,  coeduca¬ 
tion  in,  41 1. 

London  Times ,  on  burlesque  of  govt, 
in  U.  S.,  142. 

London  University,  examination  re¬ 
quirements  of,  for  degree,  444. 

Longfellow,  316. 

Louis  Napoleon,  conquest  of  Mexico 
by,  141. 

Lovejoy,  Elijah,  shot  in  Alton,  Ill., 
Nov.,  1837,  for  exercising  freedom 
of  speech,  130. 

Luther,  Martin,  48  ;  fought  against 
caste,  153  ;  denounces  Erasmus, 
318. 

Lyon,  Miss  Mary,  teacher  in  N.  H., 
409  ;  founder  of  Mt.  Holyoke 
Seminary  for  young  women,  410. 

Macbeth,  Mayor  of  Charleston,  on 
governmental  management  of  so¬ 
cial  relations,  170. 

Mackenzie,  Sir  George,  on  women 
as  legal  witnesses,  204. 

Macon,  Mr.,  of  N.  C.,  calls  slavery 
a  curse  which  must  be  endured,  23. 

Madison,  Pres.  James,  quoted  ad¬ 
verse  to  slavery,  20  ;  on  slavery  in 
the  Constitution,  21  ;  on  guards 
against,  22  ;  on  Constitution  and 
slavery,  69. 

Majority,  the,  Sen.  Douglas’s  doc¬ 
trine  of,  1 17  ;  its  right  over  the 
minority  discussed,  118  ;  instances 
of  error  by,  333. 

Malthusian  theory,  the  result  of  sur¬ 
vey  of  history,  44. 

Man,  his  treatment  of  women,  220, 
221,  225,  226  ;  his  rights  and 
claims,  227. 

Mann,  Horace,  Pres,  of  Antioch  Col¬ 
lege,  Ohio,  encourages  coeduca¬ 
tion,  1853,  411. 

Mansfield,  Lord,  declares  that  the 
law  of  England  does  not  recognize 
slavery,  66. 

Marblehead,  story  of  the  fishermen 
of,  258. 

Martineau,  Miss,  honored  by  men, 
220. 


INDEX 


49 1 


Mason,  George,  on  peaceful  change 
of  govt.,  136,  141  ;  in  Constitu¬ 
tional  Convention,  on  punishment 
of  national  sins,  165. 

Mass.,  Gov.  of,  favors  suppression  of 
free  speech,  131. 

Material  prosperity,  its  danger,  9. 

Mather,  Cotton,  his  story  of  a  Bos¬ 
ton  Puritan  divine,  258  ;  torture 
of  witches  by,  320. 

M  ay  flower,  the  emblem  of  liberty,  244. 

Mayhew,  Jonathan,  his  influence  in 
the  Revolution,  329,  343. 

Mercer,  John  F.,  20. 

Methodist  Church,  denounces  slavery 
in  1784,  68. 

Middletown,  Conn.,  address  by  G. 
W.  Curtis,  delivered  at,  1. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  on  exclusion  in 
suffrage,  190  ;  on  woman-suffrage, 
213  ;  on  universities  and  special 
education,  450. 

Milton,  understood  political  duty,  5  ; 
the  greatest  English  scholar,  12; 
gave  himself  to  liberty  ;  his  expos¬ 
ure  of  tyranny;  on  active  virtue, 
13;  on  education,  331;  on  Latin 
and  Greek  as  the  gateway  of  edu¬ 
cation,  346. 

Mississippi,  bill  to  regulate  slavery  in 
territory  of,  22. 

Missouri  Compromise,  the,  repealed 
because  of  demoralization  in  free 
majority  of  Congress,  30 ;  debate 
of,  alarmed  the  country  to  resist 
slavery,  72. 

Mitchell,  Maria,  honored  by  men, 
220. 

Moniletir,  the,  mouth-piece  of  Napo¬ 
leon,  300. 

Monroe,  Pres.,  cedes  to  Spain  terri¬ 
tory  now  Texas,  25. 

Moral  courage  and  trade,  9. 

Moral  respect  dependent  on  freedom, 
17. 

Morality  in  law,  discussed,  53-56. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  quoted  adverse 
to  slavery,  20;  on  Zenger  trial  in 
N.  Y.,  298,  449. 

Napier,  Sir  William,  on  suffrage  in 
England  and  civil  war,  218. 

Napoleon,  calls  England  the  “  nation 
of  shopkeepers,”  9 ;  founds  the 
University  of  Berlin,  344. 


Negroes,  denied  political  rights  in  N. 
Y.,  1 13,  1 14;  their  treatment  in 
South  and  North  ;  a  soft,  hopeless, 
submissive  race,  120  ;  their  treat¬ 
ment  after  the  war,  169. 

Netherlands,  crushed  by  Spain,  152. 

New  England,  her  trade  exceeded  by 
that  of  Virginia,  19  ;  part  of,  in 
Revolution,  323  ;  influence  of,  on 
American  national  life,  381-383; 
its  distinctive  institutions,  385  ;  pi¬ 
oneer  of  independence,  386  ;  influ¬ 
ence  in  slavery  agitation,  388. 

New  England  Society  of  the  City  of 
New  York,  address  before,  239, 
253 ;  unveiled  statue  of  the  Pilgrim 
in  Central  Park,  N.  Y. ,  1885, 

367. 

New  Jersey  compared  with  Virginia, 

19- 

Newspapers,  their  power,  298-302  ; 
number  and  circulation  of,  in  U.  S. 
in  1881,  301 ;  liberty  conceded  them 
in  public  and  private  affairs,  302, 
303 ;  their  independence  threat¬ 
ened  by  party  spirit,  304. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  on  limitations  of 
knowledge,  479. 

New  York  and  its  Press  (Ad¬ 
dress  XII.),  289-312. 

New  York,  colored  men  denied  equal 
rights  in,  1 14 ;  Gov.  of,  favored  bill 
suppressing  free  speech,  131  ;  sen¬ 
timent  of  capitalists  and  politicians 
in,  139,  140 ;  property  rights  of 
women  in,  by  bill  of  i860,  195  ;  in¬ 
difference  to  its  history,  289,  290 ; 
Indian  policy  in,  291  ;  Dongan 
Charter  in  1683,  292  ;  first  opposed 
taxation  and  stamp  acts  of  Eng¬ 
land,  first  spoke  for  Colonial  in¬ 
dependence,  first  non-importation 
agreement  against  Great  Britain, 
293 ;  historic  incidents  in,  294 ; 
Weekly  Journal ,  issued  in  1733, 
296 ;  Daily  Journal ,  issued  in  1785, 
300 ;  Herald ,  in  1835,  301 ;  slow  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  higher  education 
in,  347  ;  condition  of  education  in, 
lottery  law  passed  to  found  college 
in,  348;  education  in,  after  the  Rev¬ 
olution,  352, 432  ;  debt  of,  to  Alex. 
Hamilton  for  higher  education, 
355  ;  its  system  of  education  in 
1884,  356,  360;  statistics  of  edu- 


49  2 


INDEX 


cation  in,  358  ;  its  cosmopolitan 
settlement,  457, 458  ;  education  leg¬ 
islation  in,  477,478;  Constitution¬ 
al  Convention  of,  July  19,  1867; 
speech  in,  by  G.  W.  Curtis,  181. 

New  York  Gazette ,  first  newspaper 
in  N.  Y.,  295. 

New  York  State  Press  Association, 
address  before,  289. 

New  York  Tribune ,  address  on  Pa¬ 
triotism  published  in,  38  ;  on  equal 
rights  for  all  citizens  the  radical 
basis  of  govt.,  186. 

Nightingale,  Florence,  honored  by 
men,  220. 

North,  the,  averse  to  resistance,  2  ; 
divided  and  uncertain  under  Pres. 
Buchanan,  62  ;  sentiment  against 
slavery  in,  91.  ( See  Civil  War.) 

Northwest  Ordinance,  20;  seeks  to 
exclude  slavery  from  territories, 
1787,  69,  84. 

Obedience  to  law,  not  obligatory  un¬ 
der  all  circumstances,  53. 

Oberlin  College,  Ohio,  founded  in 
1834,  first  co-educational  college, 
411. 

Olmsted,  Fred.  Law,  on  English  la¬ 
borers,  102. 

Onesimus,  used  as  an  excuse  of  sla¬ 
very,  152. 

Ordinance  of  1787,  consecrated  the 
Northwest  to  freedom,  384. 

Orr,  Gov.,  of  South  Carolina,  on 
rights  of  freedmen,  194. 

Ostend  Conference,  141. 

Otis,  James,  30 ;  declares  that  all 
men  are  free-born,  104  ;  on  repre¬ 
sentative  govt.,  188  ;  on  virtual 
representation,  192,  231  ;  proposes 
stamp-act  congress  in  1765,  294  ; 
proposes  assembly  of  an  American 
congress,  323. 

Oxford  University,  its  unity,  358. 

Parker,  Mr.,  of  Va.,  on  prohibition 
of  slave-trade,  21. 

Parker,  Theodore,  on  duty  of  edu¬ 
cated  men  before  the  war,  145, 
264  ;  on  Goethe,  318. 

Parr,  Samuel,  11. 

Party,  lines  of,  obliterated  by  war,  138  ; 
organization  necessary  to,  its  dan¬ 
ger,  272  ;  insists  upon  unquestion- 


ingsupport,  273  ;  denies  patriotism 
of  opponents,  274  ;  its  spirit  in 
early  administrations,  275  ;  shown 
in  Pres.  Andrew  Johnson’s  im¬ 
peachment,  276  ;  in  contested  elec¬ 
tion  of  1876,  277  ;  should  be 
subordinated  to  patriotism,  278; 
domination  of,  276-278. 

Party  spirit,  threatens  the  indepen¬ 
dence  of  the  press,  304  ;  menaces 
popular  govt.,  305  ;  in  elections, 

309. 

Patriotism  (Address  XI.),  39. 

Patriotism,  devotion  to  principle,  not 
country,  41  ;  fidelity  to  the  Amer¬ 
ican  idea  of  democracy,  52  ;  con¬ 
sists  in  maintenance  of  public  moral 
tone,  58  ;  illustrations  of,  282-285  ; 
must  be  kept  in  repair,  470  ;  not 
sufficient  to  maintain  liberty,  471. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  accomplishes  re¬ 
peal  of  English  corn-laws,  283. 

Pennsylvania,  compared  with  Vir¬ 
ginia,  18  ;  convention  in,  declares 
conferring  suffrage  upon  blacks 
criminal,  152. 

Pennsylvanian ,  the,  “Union  men” 
assembly  called  by,  63. 

Pericles,  on  glory  of  women,  220. 

Petitions  concerning  slavery,  Frank¬ 
lin  heads  one,  21  ;  returned,  22. 

Peto,  Sir  Morton,  astonished  at  con¬ 
dition  of  U.  S.  after  the  Civil 
War,  155. 

Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Harvard 
University,  address  before,  96  ; 
born  in  William  and  Mary’s  Col¬ 
lege,  345. 

Philadelphia,  Female  Antislavery  So¬ 
ciety,  24th  annual  fair  of,  Dec., 
1859,  62  ;  People’s  Literary  Insti¬ 
tute,  address  before,  Dec.,  i860,  not 
permitted,  63  ;  first  daily  newspa¬ 
per — A  mei  ican  Daily  A  dverliser — 
published  in,  1784,  300. 

Philip  II.  of  Spain,  and  Netherlands, 
152. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  willing  to  dissolve 
the  Union  to  save  liberty,  160 ; 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration  of,  321. 

Pierce,  Pres.,  announces  peace  in  de¬ 
bate  on  Constitution,  79  ;  elected 
by  South,  136. 

Pinckney,  Mr.,  on  slave  victory  in 
Missouri  Compromise,  24,  73. 


INDEX 


493 


Political  duty  of  Americans,  265, 
266 ;  not  discharged  by  voting, 

267. 

Political  Infidelity  (Address 
V.),  125-148. 

Political  rights,  denied  to  colored 
men,  113,  114. 

Politics  and  the  literary  orator,  6  ; 
the  divine  law  applied  to  human 
govt.  ;  the  science  of  society  ;  the 
preacher’s  duty  to,  7  ;  demand  or¬ 
ganization,  272. 

Pope,  Alexander,  11  ;  on  “a  little 
knowledge,”  479. 

Popular  govt. ,  its  power  and  flexibil¬ 
ity,  156. 

Porson,  Richard,  11. 

Presbyterian  Church  denounces  sla¬ 
very  in  1784,  68. 

Present  Aspect  of  the  Slavery 
Question,  the  (Address  III.), 
65-95- 

Press,  the,  liberty  of,  in  N.  Y.,  vindi¬ 
cated  at  Zenger  trial  in  1733,  295  ; 
obligations  to,  in  literature,  298  ; 
its  services  to  mankind,  299  ;  over¬ 
throws  the  Tweed  ring,  300  ;  lib¬ 
erty  of,  302,  303  ;  independence 
threatened  by  party  spirit,  304  ; 
its  function  the  moral  leadership 
of  public  opinion,  308  ;  indepen¬ 
dence  of,  defined,  311. 

Preston,  Miss,  proves  her  right  to 
practise  medicine,  229. 

Primary  meeting,  control  of,  by  ig¬ 
norance  and  corruption,  the  fault 
of  intelligent  and  honest  citizens, 

268. 

Printing,  invention  of,  in  fifteenth 
century,  48. 

Providence,  R.  I.,  votes  for  Conti¬ 
nental  Congress,  declares  liberty 
to  be  a  natural  right  of  mankind, 
104. 

Prussia,  school  system  of,  407. 

Public  Duty  of  Educated  Men, 
the  (Address  XI.),  261-285. 

Public  opinion,  power  of,  danger  of 
abasement  of,  alone  furthers  prog¬ 
ress,  no;  punishes  its  best  crit¬ 
ics  ;  is  really  the  govt.  ;  discussion 
alone  enlightens  it,  m  ;  the  spring 
of  American  govt.,  126. 

Public  schools,  to  be  defended  by 
Puritan  principle,  259. 


Public  spirit,  implies  educated  intel¬ 
ligence  ;  relation  of,  to  the  repub¬ 
lic,  459. 

Puritan  Principle  and  Puritan 
Pluck  (Address  X.),  253-260. 

Puritan  principle,  its  duty  towards 
Church  and  State,  politics,  public 
schools,  etc.,  259,  260. 

Puritan  Principle,  the  :  Liberty 
Under  Law  (Address  IX.),  239- 
249. 

Puritan  Spirit,  the  (Address 
X  V.),  369-390. 

Puritans,  bring  the  seed  of  freedom 
to  America,  246  ;  their  principle 
of  liberty  under  law  a  remedy  for 
every  emergency,  247  ;  duty  of 
their  descendants,  248,  249  ;  tri¬ 
umphs  of  their  principles,  255  ; 
led  the  battle  of  religious  liber¬ 
ty  ;  thoroughness  of,  258  ;  settle¬ 
ment  of  New  England  by,  370, 
371  ;  their  defiance  of  Great  Brit¬ 
ain  in  Stamp-act  Congress,  372  ; 
spirit  of,  373,  374;  Jonson,  Ma¬ 
caulay,  Hume  on,  375  ;  mocked 
by  Cavaliers,  376  ;  instances  of,  in 
English  public  life,  376  ;  self-sac¬ 
rifice  and  devotion  of,  377  ;  abso¬ 
lute  individual  liberty  the  principle 
of,  378  ;  motive  in  seeking  Amer¬ 
ica,  378,  379  ;  compelled  to  self- 
govt.,  in  Cont.  Cong,  and  Const. 
Conv. ;  influence  of,  on  Colonial  and 
New  England  history,  381  ;  in¬ 
fluence  of,  in  slavery  agitation,  387. 

Putnam,  Gen.  Israel,  leaves  the 
plough  to  go  to  war,  34. 

Quincy,  Josiah,  address  dedicated  to,  2. 

Rebellion,  the,  offered  but  two 
courses  to  the  North — surrender 
or  Civil  War,  112  ;  and  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  free,  popular  government, 
125.  {See  Civil  War.) 

Reconstruction,  vain  without  destruc¬ 
tion  of  slavery,  147. 

Reformation,  the,  influence  of,  in  set¬ 
tlement  of  America,  342  ;  leaders 
of,  343 ;  identical  with  Puritan- 
ism,  373. 

Regents,  Board  of,  of  University  of 
the  State  of  New  York,  address 
before,  by  G.  W.  Curtis,  339. 


494 


INDEX 


Repeal  of  African  slave-trade  laws  pro¬ 
posed  under  Pres.  Buchanan,  62. 

Report  of  Committee  on  Right  of 
Suffrage  and  Qualifications  to  hold 
Office,  in  N.  Y.  Constitutional  Con¬ 
vention,  1867,  discussion  of,  181, 
182. 

Republican  party,  first  convention 
of,  2 ;  formed  in  1850,  its  anti¬ 
slavery  principles,  84  ;  holds  sla¬ 
very  to  be  a  wrong,  85. 

Republican  Senate  (1876)  should  pro¬ 
vide  settlement  of  Hayes- Tilden 
election  difficulty,  248. 

Revolution,  the,  its  principle  that 
Liberty  is  the  natural  right  of  man, 
66  ;  the  victory  of  constitutional 
liberty,  15 1. 

Rhode  Island  Legislature,  bill  against 
free  speech,  Feb.,  1836,  131. 

Right  of  Suffrage,  the  (Ad¬ 
dress  VII.),  181-215. 

Robinson,  John,  on  respect  for  law, 
246;  compared  with  Laud,  257. 

Rome,  8  ;  slavery  the  cause  of  her 
fall,  17  ;  liberty  in,  the  possession 
of  a  favored  class,  101  ;  condition 
of  women  in,  221. 

Romilly,  Sir  Samuel,  on  abolition  of 
death  penalty  in  England,  197. 

Russell,  Earl,  reply  to  Sumner’s 
speech  on  foreign  relations,  126. 

Russell,  Mr.,  London  Times  corre¬ 
spondent,  on  public  sentiment  in 
U.  S.,  during  Civil-War  debate, 
140. 

Rutledge,  John,  on  interest  the  gov¬ 
erning  principle  of  nations,  165. 

Rynders,  Isaiah,  supports  R.  C. 
Winthrop,  145. 

Sanchez,  Rodrigo,  sights  land  with 
Columbus,  47. 

Scholar,  the,  his  duty  to  politics,  4  ; 
to  every-day  interests,  5  ;  popular 
idea  of,  a  consumer,  not  a  producer, 
7;  in  English  history,  cited,  11  ; 
his  picture  in  old  plays  and  ro¬ 
mances  ;  truly  the  representative 
of  thought,  8 ;  his  interests  eternal, 
not  temporal  ;  his  duty  the  eleva¬ 
tion  of  public  sentiment  ;  a  wise  if 
not  a  learned  man  ;  liberty  the  law 
of  his  life,  10  ;  his  duty  to  society, 
to  public  measures,  14  ;  represents 


thought,  which  is  life  and  liberty  ; 
his  duty  to  cherish  political  free¬ 
dom,  32 ;  to  arouse  pure  public  sen¬ 
timent,  33  ;  indifference  to  public 
questions,  318;  instanced,  319; 
great  public  services  of,  instanced ; 
work  of  the,  in  France,  321;  in 
Ireland,  Italy,  Germany,  322 ;  in 
America,  323-325  ;  leadership  of 
the,  326  ;  in  the  Revolution,  323, 
324 ;  in  Confederation  period, 
325 ;  in  period  of  Constitutional 
debate,  and  Civil  War,  328 ;  in 
slavery  agitation,  329. 

Scott,  Dred,  case  decided  in  Supreme 
Court,  1856,  38. 

Scott,  John  Morin,  on  colonial  sepa¬ 
ration  from  England,  293,  294. 

Self  -  made  men,  definition  of,  269  ; 
sophistry  regarding,  270. 

Seneca  Falls,  N.  Y.,  convention  held 
at,  opened  discussion  upon  woman- 
suffrage,  18 1. 

Seward,  W.  H.,  on  compromise,  78; 
speech  at  Detroit,  Oct.,  1856,  on 
subjection  to  the  South,  132,  135. 

Seymour,  Gov.  Horatio,  of  N.  Y., 
169 ;  on  New  England  celebra¬ 
tions,  456. 

Shakespeare,  12  ;  song  of,  quoted, 
226. 

Sharpe,  Gen.,  on  heritage  of  Anneke 
Jans,  254. 

Sheridan,  138. 

Sherman,  Roger,  of  Conn.,  protests 
against  sanction  of  slavery  by  the 
Constitution,  21  ;  on  gradual  abo¬ 
lition  of  slavery,  70. 

Slavery  agitation,  part  of  the  scholar 
in,  329-331- 

Slavery,  divided  the  great  parties  in 
1856,  2  ;  the  foe  of  progress  ;  im- 
brutes  humanity,  15  ;  is  against  nat¬ 
ure,  reason,  instinct,  divine  law, 
16;  disgraces  labor,  17;  demands 
extension  of  area,  18,  19  ;  at  for¬ 
mation  of  the  Union,  and  the 
Constitution,  20 ;  hateful  to  the 
fathers,  21  ;  debate  upon,  in  first 
Congress;  regarded  by  the  fathers 
as  a  temporary  institution,  21;  as¬ 
serted  to  be  nationalized  by  the 
Constitution,  27;  discussion  of,  si¬ 
lenced  in  the  North,  28  ;  planted 
in  America  by  Las  Casas  ;  defend- 


INDEX 


495 


ed  on  the  plea  of  the  conversion  of 
the  negro,  50  ;  protest  against,  by 
famous  men,  65  ;  acts  for  gradual 
abolition  of,  in  Penn.,  Conn., 
Mass.,  R.  I.,  N.  PI.,  N.  Y.,  N.  J., 
between  1780  and  1804,  67  ;  effect 
of  cotton-gin  on,  effect  of  War  of 
1812  on,  71  ;  only  asked  to  be  let 
alone ;  sentiment  against,  awak¬ 
ened  by  Missouri  Compromise, 
72  ;  its  triumph  in  Missouri  Com¬ 
promise,  73 ;  its  political  con¬ 
trol  of  the  country,  74 ;  declared 
to  be  a  divine  and  Christian  in¬ 
stitution,  75  ;  protected  by  Con¬ 
stitution  and  Congress  ;  threatens 
disunion,  its  subserviency  changed 
to  tyranny,  76,  77  ;  let  alone  till 
1850,  82;  has  no  rights,  84  ;  Re¬ 
publican  party  and,  85 ;  brute  force 
its  only  authority,  106;  excused  on 
ground  that  it  is  a  State  matter, 
121. 

Slave-power  advocates  extension  of 
slavery,  18  ;  threatens  disunion, 
23  ;  conquers  in  Missouri  Com¬ 
promise,  24  ;  threatens  disunion  ; 
its  victory,  26  ;  controls  political 
preferment,  27  ;  asserts  slavery  to 
be  a  missionary  system  ;  aims  at 
control  of  govt.  ;  Fugitive  slave 
Bill  passed  by,  29  ;  its  course  reck¬ 
less  after  the  passage  of  Fugitive- 
slave  Bill,  30  ;  its  doctrine  that  the 
Union  is  a  contract,  31. 

Slave  States,  have  no  literature,  no 
art,  no  progress,  15  ;  manners,  mor¬ 
als,  robbery,  false  honor,  licen¬ 
tiousness,  in  ;  founded  on  crime, 
16. 

Slave-trade  to  continue  till  1808  un¬ 
der  the  Constitution,  21  ;  Mr.  Par¬ 
ker  of  Va.,  on,  2i  ;  prohibited, 
23  ;  secretly  carried  on  under  Pres. 
Buchanan,  62  ;  denounced  in  Va. , 
in  1774,  68. 

Slidell,  Mr.,  on  peaceful  change  of 
govt.,  136. 

Smith,  Chief -Justice,  first  historian 
of  N.  Y.,  on  condition  of  educa¬ 
tion  in  the  State,  348. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  on  Cobden,  331  ; 
on  university  examinations  in  Eng¬ 
land,  442. 

Smith,  Rev.  Dr.  W.  A.,  Pres,  of 


Randolph-Macon  College,  Va.,  his 
book,  “  Philosophy  and  Practice 
of  Slavery,”  70. 

Smith,  Sydney,  on  higher  education 
of  women,  219,  230  ;  on  equality 
of  understanding  in  the  sexes,  409. 

Society  and  the  individual,  15. 

Socrates,  10. 

Somers,  Lord,  on  suffrage  as  security 
for  life  and  property,  188. 

Somerville,  Mrs.,  honored  by  men, 
220. 

South  Carolina,  its  Representative 
assaults  Mr.  Charles  Sumner  in 
Senate,  2  ;  Gov.  of,  recommends 
to  the  Legislature  in  1856  the  re¬ 
opening  of  slave  -trade,  38. 

Southern  Policy,  aim  of,  to  control 
the  country,  128  ;  its  web  to  en¬ 
tangle  the  country,  129  ;  result  of 
its  persistent  effort  to  demoralize 
the  country,  132;  demoralization 
wrought  by,  its  effect  in  the  govt., 
142. 

Southern  States,  the  methods  of,  to 
obtain  control,  137;  asserted  to  be 
specially  adapted  for  slave-labor, 
23* 

Spain,  territory  ceded  to,  25  ;  cava¬ 
liers  of,  brought  misery  and  sorrow 
upon  America,  51. 

Spartacus,  story  of  his  revolt,  101. 

Spirit  and  Influence  of  the 
Higher  Education,  the  (Ad¬ 
dress  XIV.),  339-366. 

State  rights,  false  conception  of,  109; 
the  intrenchments  of  Southern  Pol¬ 
icy,  128. 

Stephens,  Mr.  A.  H.,  of  Ga. ,  slavery 
leader,  on  the  attitude  of  the  fa¬ 
thers  to  slavery,  70  ;  on  triumph  of 
slavery,  73;  “We  build  by  the 
corner-stone  of  slavery,”  155  ;  on 
slavery  legalized  by  Congress,  134; 
counsels  the  South  to  wait  and  ac¬ 
complish  a  peaceful  revolution,  135; 
made  Vice-Pres.  of  Confederation, 
136,  141. 

Sumner,  Charles,  his  speech,  “  The 
Crime  in  Kansas”;  assaulted  in 
the  Senate,  2  ;  as  a  scholar,  5  ; 
speech  on  foreign  relations,  126;  a 
Puritan  statesman,  “There  is  no 
other  side,”  256;  in  slavery  agi¬ 
tation,  330. 


49  6 


INDEX 


Supreme  Court  of  the  U.  S.  asserts 
that  an  African  has  no  rights,  89. 

Swift,  Dean,  11. 

Switzerland,  the  refuge  of  English 
reformers  flying  from  Queen  Mary, 
380. 

Tallmadge,  Mr.,  of  N.  Y.,  in  debate 
on  Missouri  Compromise  and  set¬ 
tlement  of  the  West  with  slavery, 
23  ;  on  limitation  of  slavery,  24. 

Taney,  Chief- Justice,  on  Dred  Scott 
case,  38  ;  false  history  of,  corrected, 
172. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  11. 

Territories,  bill  to  regulate  slavery 
in,  1798,  22;  prohibition  of  slavery 
in,  how  lost  under  Pres.  Jefferson, 
in  1784,  68. 

Texas,  retaken  by  slave -power,  27; 
ceded  for  Florida,  73. 

Thackeray,  criticism  of,  63. 

Thatcher,  Mr.,  of  Mass.,  on  Missis¬ 
sippi  bill  of  1798,  22. 

Thermopylae,  4  ;  the  prototype  of 
Kansas,  5. 

Thomas,  Gen.,  anecdote  of,  238. 

Ticknor,  George,  on  education  in 
Boston,  408. 

Toombs,  Sen.,  speaks  on  slavery,  in 
Boston,  87 ;  agrees  to  drink  all 
blood  shed  in  the  war,  136,  141 ; 
willing  to  dissolve  the  Union, 
160. 

Torquemada,  Romish  Inquisitor, 
burns  liberty  at  the  stake,  152. 

Tory,  British,  disbelief  in  popular 
govt,  in  U.  S. ,  158. 

Trade,  its  demoralizing  tendency,  9. 

Treaty  of  Vienna,  and  the  degrada¬ 
tion  of  Europe,  137. 

Trumbull,  Gov.,  of  Connecticut, 
Washington’s  letter  to,  112. 

Union  College,  Schenectady,  N.  Y., 
address  before,  38,  263. 

Union  of  the  Colonies  against  the 
French  in  1674,  294. 

United  States,  their  nationality,  161, 
163  ;  progress  of,  162  ;  government 
•of,  founded  on  equal  rights  of  all 
men,  172.  ( See  America.) 

University  of  the  State  of  New  York, 
its  formation,  353  ;  early  history 
of,  354,  355  ;  compared  to  Uni¬ 


versity  of  France,  357;  relations 
of,  to  N.  Y.  colleges,  359;  its  sys¬ 
tem,  360  ;  appropriation  for,  361  ; 
relation  of,  to  Department  of  Pub¬ 
lic  Instruction,  362 ;  moral  and  in¬ 
tellectual  influence  of,  363 ;  gov¬ 
erning  body  of,  elected  by  Legis¬ 
lature,  429 ;  instances  of  famous 
men  connected  with  ;  independent 
of  party,  430 ;  ignorance  concern¬ 
ing,  431  ;  post  -  revolution  history 
of,  432-434 ;  made  trustees  of  State 
and  law  libraries  and  State  Muse¬ 
um  in  1846-47  ;  power  of,  to  re¬ 
peal  charter  of  any  educational 
institution  in  N.  Y.  ;  relation  of, 
to  European  universities,  438  ;  re¬ 
lation  of,  to  schools  in  N.  Y.,  440, 
441  ;  examinations  by,  442  ;  con¬ 
vocation  of,  443 ;  its  power  to 
hold  examinations  and  grant  de¬ 
grees,  and  relation  to  the  colleges 
of  N.  Y. ,  445,  446 ;  degrees  to  non¬ 
college  students  who  pass  exam¬ 
inations,  447 ;  sets  its  face  against 
the  spirit  of  material  prosperity, 
450. 

University  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  the  (Address  XVII.),  429- 
452- 

University,  the,  cherished  civil  liberty 
in  Reformation,  343 ;  its  influence 
feared  by  despotism,  344 ;  relation 
of,  to  practical  life,  347  ;  its  in¬ 
fluence  in  the  Revolution,  350; 
extension  in  England,  445  ;  appro¬ 
priation  for,  in  N.  Y.  Legislature, 
477. 

Vallambrosa,  12. 

Vallandigham,  Mr.,  169. 

Vane,  Sir  Henry,  execution  of, 
297. 

Vassar  College,  the  first  fully  endow¬ 
ed  college  for  women  in  the  world, 
222  ;  address  before,  401. 

Vassar,  Matthew,  aim  of,  in  founding 
Vassar  College,  406  ;  representa¬ 
tive  of  public  sentiment  regarding 
women,  415  ;  on  intellectual  equal¬ 
ity  of  women  and  men,  417  ;  on 
rising  standard  in  education  of 
women,  418  ;  an  emancipator, 
420. 

Verrazzani,  50. 


INDEX 


Vincent,  Lord  St.,  on  abolition  of 
slave-trade  in  England,  197. 

Virginia,  decline  of,  from  1750  to 
1850,  compared  with  other  States, 
18  ;  in  1774,  denounces  slave- 
trade,  68. 

Voltaire  in  London,  story  of,  317. 

Walton,  Izaak,  on  Dr.  Botelier  and 
the  strawberry,  243. 

War  of  1812,  effect  of,  on  slavery,  72  ; 
compared  with  Civil  War  in  arma¬ 
ment,  162. 

War,  secures  its  end  by  force,  ends 
debate,  means  temporary  renun¬ 
ciation  of  rights,  1 1 2. 

Ward,  J.  Q.  A.,  modeller  of  the  Puri¬ 
tan  statue  in  Central  Park,  N.  Y., 
363. 

Warden,  Rev.  D.  B.,  Principal  of 
Kingston  Academy,  N.  Y.,  467. 

Warren,  Joseph,  dies  for  liberty, 
30. 

Washington,  on  slavery,  20  ;  coun¬ 
sels  resistance  to  innovation  upon 
the  principles  of  the  Constitution, 
72  ;  on  the  liberty  allowed  to  trai¬ 
tors,  letter  to  Gov.  Trumbull  of 
Conn.,  1 12  ;  his  work  undone  by 
Calhoun,  137  ;  on  virtual  repre¬ 
sentation,  231. 

Wayne,  Judge,  on  law  against  slave- 
trade,  at  Savannah,  Ga.,  70. 

Wealth,  creation  of,  not  the  highest 
object  of  life,  58. 

Webster,  protests  against  extension 
of  slave  -  territory,  29  ;  Edward 
Everett’s  discourse  on,  70 ;  on 
slavery,  72  ;  on  fugitive  slaves,  75  ; 
derides  antislavery  agitation,  129, 
237;  political  teacher  of  Winthrop  ; 
on  extension  of  slavery  in  1819, 
143  ;  plea  for  Dartmouth  College, 
474- 

Webster,  Noah,  on  education  in  U. 
S.,  408. 

Wesleyan  University,  address  before 
the  Literary  Societies  of,  1. 

Westfield,  Mass.,  address  before  the 
Normal  School  in,  38. 

Whig  party,  dissolution  of,  83. 

Wickliffe,  on  the  priesthood  ;  trans¬ 
lates  Bible,  48. 

Wigfall,  Louis,  rebel  chief,  on  equal¬ 
ity,  154. 


497 

Willard,  Mrs.  Emma,  founder  of 
Troy  Female  Seminary,  409. 

Williams,  Roger,  seeks  liberty,  156  ; 
on  separation  of  Church  and  State, 
343- 

Winkelried,  Arnold  von,  his  heroic 
death,  45. 

Winthrop,  Robert  C.,  on  Republican 
party  as  the  cause  of  Civil  War, 
143  ;  on  discussion  of  slavery,  144  ; 
contrasted  with  Theodore  Win¬ 
throp,  145. 

Winthrop,  Theodore,  contrasted  with 
Robert  C.  Winthrop,  145. 

Wolf,  Frederick  Augustus,  founder 
of  modern  Prussian  school  system, 

407. 

Woman  -  suffrage,  discussion  of,  be¬ 
gun  in  1848  at  Const.  Conv.  of 
N.  Y.,  opposition  to,  the  result  of 
prejudice  or  sentimentality,  18 1  ; 
withheld  unjustly  and  contrary  to 
American  principles,  183  ;  should 
be  granted  except  when  dangerous 
to  the  State  ;  Thomas  Hare  on, 
190 ;  Miss  Anthony  on ;  Glad¬ 
stone  on,  191  ;  objected  to  as  an 
innovation,  197  ;  alleged  to  be  un¬ 
womanly,  200,  201  ;  in  N.  J.,  207  ; 
in  Canada,  208  ;  alleged  to  entail 
military  duty,  209  ;  petition  for,  in 
Parliament  by  J.  S.  Mill,  212  ;  a 
demand  for  equal  rights,  compared 
with  slavery  agitation,  217-218. 

Women,  theory  that  they  are  ab¬ 
sorbed  in  man  as  inferior  and  sub¬ 
ordinate,  184  ;  have  the  same  po¬ 
litical  rights  as  men,  185,  187  ;  al¬ 
leged  to  be  represented  by  men  in 
politics,  192  ;  asked  to  confide  in 
men  because  of  identical  interests, 
194  ;  advantages  of  the  ballot  to, 
196,  197  ;  first  recognized  as  teach¬ 
ers  in  Mass,  in  1790,  197  ;  alleged 
to  exert  political  influence  without 
voting,  199,  200 ;  interest  of,  in 
good  govt.,  202  ;  Sen.  Frelinghuy- 
sen  on  the  mission  of,  203  ;  right 
of,  to  sit  on  juries,  204  ;  Mr.  Rus¬ 
sell  on  evidence  given  by,  205  ;  ca¬ 
pacity  of,  to  hold  office,  instances 
of  office-holding  by,  in  England, 
205,  206  ;  their  right  of  suffrage  in 
N.  J.,  207,  in  Canada,  208  ;  their 
purifying  influence  upon  politics, 


I.— 32 


498 


INDEX 


209  ;  influence  of,  in  Civil  War, 
210 ;  their  rights  have  never  been 
acknowledged,  219 ;  degraded  in 
Greece,  220 ;  condition  of,  in 
Rome,  China,  221  ;  in  America, 
illustrated  by  Vassar  College, 
222 ;  their  meetings  compared  with 
those  of  men,  223,  224 ;  man’s 
estimate  of  their  duty,  225  ; 
should  be  given  equal  education 
with  men,  228  ;  instances  of  women 
who  have  proved  their  right  to 
equality  with  men,  229  ;  sphere  of, 
230,  413,  414  ;  Sydney  Smith  on 
education  of,  219,  230  ;  relation  of, 
to  the  State,  to  the  family,  230  ; 
influence  of,  upon  man,  231  ;  law 
of  Mass,  on  guardianship  by  ;  right 
to  vote  discussed,  232  ;  interest  of, 
in  good  govt,  equal  with  men, 
233,  234  !  objection  that  they  do 
not  wish  to  vote  discussed,  235  ; 
should  take  interest  in  their  suf¬ 
frage,  236  ;  estimate  of,  the  test  of 


civilization  ;  gradual  progress  of,  in 
liberty,  412 ;  misconceptions  re¬ 
garding  duty  of,  413,  414  ;  Matthew 
Vassar  on  equality  of,  with  men, 
417  ;  influence  of  education  upon, 
421  ;  in  literature,  422  ;  Margaret 
Fuller  on  freedom  of,  423. 

Wood,  Fernando,  spokesman  of  pub¬ 
lic  sentiment  on  secession,  139  ; 
supporter  of  R.  C.  Winthrop,  145, 
169. 

Wooster,  obeys  the  call  to  war,  34. 

Wurtemberg,  Reformation  kindled 
in,  51. 

Ximenes,  Cardinal,  opposes  slavery 
of  Indians,  65. 

Zachyzewska,  Miss,  proves  her  right 
to  practise  medicine,  228. 

Zenger,  J.  P.,  issued  New  York 
Weekly  Journal ,  1733,  defended  in 
libel  case  by  And.  Hamilton,  296, 
306. 


END  OF  VOL.  I 


II - 

UJM 


